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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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and were still on the skull, so that I had the whole thing com-
plete. The guide said it was as big a one as was to be got.
All the Ovis argali horns I saw to-day were different from
those which I saw on the Altai Mountains. The latter were
thicker at the base (nineteen inches round as against sixteen),
and they were more rounded, and not so much twisted. The
Mongol says the sheep are the same.
We crossed the range at a height of eight thousand feet.
Except the last half-mile the ascent was not steep, but led
gradually up a narrow valley. The last mile or two was over
soft green turf, and near the summit there was a perfect mass of
flowers, chiefly forget-me-nots ; and I am sure I shall not forget
for a very long time the pleasure it was, seeing all this rich
profusion of flowers and grass, in place of those dreary gravel
slopes of the Gobi Desert. The sun had now set, and I climbed
a neighbouring peak as a last hope of seeing an Ovis argali,
but there was not a sign of one. There was no great view
from the summit, as higher peaks rose all round, and I could
only just catch a glimpse of the plain to the south, which
was covered with a distant haze.
There were still no trees to be seen, and a curious charac-
teristic of these hills is that there is absolutely no water. For
twelve miles from Morgai to the summit of the pass we had
not seen a drop of water. From this absence of water the
valleys were not deep—not more than five or six hundred feet
below the summit of the hills on either side—nor were the hill-
sides remarkably steep, as in the Himalayas. They are grassy
slopes with rocks cropping out at their summits, and here and
there on their sides. Five miles on the southern side a small
stream appeared, and the valley bottom was partitioned off into
fields, round which irrigation ducts had been led ; but these
were all now deserted, and the water was wasted in flowing over
uncultivated fields. Trees now began to appear near the
stream, and at 11.10 p.m. we pitched camp on a little grassy
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