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| 0370 |
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 |
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CHAPTER XV
THE DEPRESSION OF TURFAN
On February 23, 1906, after nearly nine months in the
basin of Lop, I crossed the Desert Mountains (Chol Tagh)
and entered the basin of Turfan. Though the physical fea-
tures of the two basins are almost identical, and though the
same race inhabits both, I felt at once a subtle difference in
both scenery and people. In the Lop basin all had been
vast, hazy, and uninspiring. Though the mountain range
to the south affords some of the most magnificent scenery
in the world, one may live near it for months and scarcely
see it by reason of the haze. The country had yielded me
some of its choicest secrets, but I felt no affection for it,
no longing to return. Turfan is scarcely more attractive in
outward appearance, but it is small enough to be compre-
hended at a glance. It possesses the qualities of the life-
sized representation, as opposed to the colossal. The basin
floor extends scarcely one hundred miles east and west by
fifty north and south; the area is only about two per cent
of that of its gigantic neighbor. From the west shore of the
evanescent terminal salt lake of Böjanti, in the bottom of
the basin three hundred feet below sea-level, one can see at a
glance all the features which, in the Lop basin, can become
familiar only after months of travel: the ring of encircling
mountains; the concentric zones; the dwindling, withering
rivers, flowing from terraced valleys out upon the plain
toward the inconstant lake which most of them strive in vain
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