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0397 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 397 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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pao-chĂȘng, which Kozloff's map had led me to expect here.
They proved to be those of a small but relatively well
built fort, evidently recent in its extant construction. It
overlooked broad riverine meadows and occupied an
excellent strategic position; for the various routes
which crossed the high range before us from the south
naturally debouched towards the plains by the gorge the
fort guarded. A massive clay tower about thirty feet
high, which occupied its north-west corner, formed a con-
spicuous landmark. So we chose it as the station for our
astronomical latitude observation, while we camped some
distance below where there was grass and fresh running
water in a channel about ten yards wide and one and a half
to two feet deep. Our camp here was about 7450 feet
above the sea, and all thought of heat now lay behind us.

The ground was singularly well adapted for starting
extensive and necessarily rapid survey work such as we
were bent upon in the Nan-shan. Across the uniform
expanse of the great alluvial triangle we could at once
sight the whole amphitheatre of mountains bending round
an arc close on fifty miles long, and shape our movements
accordingly. The landscape, barren in the extreme,
singularly combined the attraction of grand mountain
vistas with that feeling of freedom which wide Alpine
plateaus always seem to convey. But the very uniformity
of its features, which enabled us in the course of six days
to survey an area of over 1200 square miles, will also
explain why I may endeavour to shorten my account by
avoiding a description of our work day by day.

The first two marches which took us south-westwards
to the vicinity of the Kashkar Pass sufficed to show me
the remarkable dryness which characterizes the western
extremity of the Nan-shan even along its most elevated
range. Ascending the great alluvial slope to an elevation
of about 10,000 feet, we nowhere met with surface
water, and all the dry beds we found crossing it from the
mountains were quite shallow. I soon convinced myself
that even at this season of melting snows the water
brought down by the valleys of the main range becomes
completely lost in the vast beds of rubble almost at their