it

through which runs is 100 miles in breadth, and averages over 1,000 feet above the sea. The banks are low, and though the river is, at Kuldja, more than a mile broad, the current flows with great rapidity. In the upper part of its course it is surrounded by the wild and magnificent scenery of the Thian-shan and its spurs, but in its middle part it passes between endless fields of grain and other crops, and amid groves of peach, apple, and pear trees. Near its banks stood the old capital of the Chagatai Empire, and the very name of this once important city of Ghenghiz Khan and his descendants (Almalik) signifies "a grove of apple trees." Apple orchards, it may be common feature of the country. Fort Vernöe, an important remarked, are the most Russian post and rising town, forty-seven miles to the south of the ford over the Ili, at the base of the Trans-Ilian Ala-tagh, and nearly 2,000 feet above the sea, is surrounded with natural orchards of apple and apricot trees bearing excellent fruit, and the mountains in the vicinity are clothed with abundant pine and other timber. Again, Tashkend, much further to the west, is in the centre of cotton fields, and here rice and wheat are also grown, though the latter has also to be brought from the Keles Valley, and the vicinity of Chemkend. Mulberry trees are common and vines are abundant, but the fig tree grows only in favoured spots, and probably finds its northern limit in the TransChu district, in the neighbourhood of Tashkend, where the fruit in the middle of September is not quite ripe but extremely sweet. Gardens surround nearly every house, and between these are fields of lucern and corn, cotton, sesame, and the zedoary tubers, used so extensively throughout India and High Asia as perfumes and aromatic tonics. In the Ili valley there were planted, after the fall of the Dzungarian Kingdom, numerous Chinese settlements, each embosomed among lofty trees; for the artificial cultivation of timber is possible even in so dry a climate as that of Central Asia, and wherever the industrious Chinese come there he makes a garden. Vines and pomegranates require to be sheltered in winter, but bear fruit lavishly, whilst everywhere plums, apricots, pears, and apples flourish with great luxuriance. Rice and maize are also among the Kuldja crops, and melons are so large that even the Californian, could he see them, would be forced to acknowledge that something in the cucurbitaceous line can be grown out of the Sacramento Valley. Dr. Schuyler, indeed, considers it the richest part of Central Asia, and about the only part acquired or occupied by the Russians which will ever repay the labour spent over it. The soil we have seen is fertile, and will yield abundant crops. The mountains abound in iron and copper, and good coal is found within fifteen miles of the city of Kuldja, and sold at from 5s. to 8s. per ton. Beef and mutton cost 1d. to 2d. per lb., and a fowl can be bought for 2d. Flour is 7d. per pud of 36 lb., maize and wheat half that price, and rice and other grain are less, though prices have doubled and even trebled since the advent of the Russians. But at present the trade of the province is unimportant: even in the Chinese times, neither the imports nor the exports reached, according to Dr. Schuyler's information, £30,000 per annum.

For the last 165 miles of its course the Ili passes through a sterile, sandy steppe, and debouches into Lake Balkash (about 780 feet above the sea), through a delta covered with thickets of reeds seventeen feet high, and almost impenetrable, except to the boars, tigers, and other animals which haunt such places all along the

shores of this lake, which, with the two Ala-Kuls,* appears to be the last remnant of a great dried-up inland sea. The river from Old Kuldja to New Kuldja is navigable at high water for about two and half months in the year, and then with great difficulty, on account of the shoals and gravelly banks. From New Kuldja to the Ili station280 miles-it is practicably navigable at all times of the year, and easily at high water. Finally, the section from the last-named point to Lake Balkash is easily navigable, but the trade has not yet sufficiently developed to make the utilisation of the stream a matter of much importance. In the mountains, which the traveller through the Ili valley never loses sight of, and the occasional cool breezes from which relieve the terrible summer heats, wild goats, deer, hares, and other animals sport among the woods of pine, poplars, willows, birches, and wild olives. Curiously enough, the dark brown seasparrows of the Kurile and Aleutian Islands (Cinclus Pallasii) are found on the Karabura Mountains; while on the southern slope of the same mountains, as well as in the Kirghiznin-Alatau, is alone found the white-bellied variety (C. leucogaster) of the same bird. The ullar, a partridge (Megaloperdrix nigellii) weighing from ten to fifteen pounds, is common; but the red-legged partridge of the Chu and Syr Daria Mountains is rare, or entirely absent from the Kuldja Mountains. Silk-weaving is not common in Kuldja, but in the valley of the Syr Daria and on all the southern affluents it is one of the great industries of the settled population, as is also the business of rearing the mulberry and the silkworm. It might, perhaps, be extended here also.

Trade has been so disorganised of late that it would be difficult to say exactly of what it at present consists, and under the Chinese régime will no doubt be entirely revolutionised, in spite of the clause in the new treaty which stipulates that Russians are to have free commercial intercourse with the Chinese provinces. Felt, silk, bang, wool, gold, silver, cotton, may be looked upon as among the exports of the surrounding region; while opium, spices, sugar, tea, linen cloths, kinkal, broadcloth, Kashmir shawls, leather, firearms, indigo, brass utensils, prints and calicoes, iron, silk, caps, cochineal, porcelain, cutlery, tobacco, snuff, padlocks, &c., are among the articles that the wild Kirghiz and other tribesmen mostly buy. But British trade with these provinces must now be looked upon as a forgotten dream, whether Slav or Mongol is to rule it.

The soil of some parts of Central Asia is extremely fertile. In the valley of the Arys wheat produces thirty-fold; lucern, after three cuttings, grows up nearly three feet high, and is prevented from bending down by its density, the stalks supporting each other, the outer ones alone bending down to the ground." The Sorghum millet and other crops are equally rank; for though the winter is extremely cold, the summer is correspondingly hot, and the facilities of irrigation in many of the drier parts of the country are great. The scenery near the shores of Issik Kul-120 miles long, 33 broad, and elevated 4,900 feet above the sea-is said to be very beautiful; while the peaks, covered with eternal snow, the torrents, and the wild rocks, add to the charm of the still more attractive country immediately along the banks of the lake. The deep, blue, brackish waters of the lake, though full of fish which are never caught, * Kul is the Turki word for a lake, and is equivalent to the Mongol Nor. † Severtsof: Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. XL. (1870), p. 371.

are solitary enough now; but it is known that once on a time cities of considerable magnitude existed along its desolate shores.

To this day the strand is strewn with

skulls and bones, evidently of Kirghiz, the remnants, possibly, not of some "great battle in the west," as the natives tell, but of washed-away cemeteries in the near vicinity. Under the clear waters of the lake, it is said, ruins can yet be seen of submerged towns; and it is certain that in digging in the neighbouring country brick walls,

sculptured stones, and inscriptions in an unknown alphabet have been found. Indeed, the station-houses near the lake are often paved with diamond-shaped tiles, some plain, others covered with a blue glaze, which had been found in the lake, and by the peasants while ploughing their fields in its vicinity.

Owing to the uncertain tenure of the Russian occupation of Kuldja, they have not permitted the valley to be colonised by their own people; and it is, indeed, doubtful whether the shiftless Moujik would be able to make as much out of the valley as did the Chinese, with their industrious habits and careful system of agriculture. The people in the vicinity of Kuldja are mostly Tarantchis, and with a few exceptions are agriculturists. The valleys of the rivers Kunges and Kash, which are prolongations of the valley of the Ili to the east, are inhabited by the Torgots and Kalmuks (pp. 96, 97), remnants of the old Dzungarians, and descendants of the Kalmuk tribes who at the beginning of last century returned from the Lower Volga. Much of these valleys consists of salt-pools and districts destitute of water. But about one-half is fitted for agriculture, and in the middle and upper part is possessed of abundance of water, pastures, meadows, and even forests. In the upper part of the valley, and in the mountains, there are reputed to be many kinds of trees—poplar, apple, apricot, elm, fir, birch, mountain-ash, &c.-but the lower part of the valley is waterless and salt. The Russians have not yet surrendered the province; and looking at the question entirely apart from political considerations, it is questionable whether, in the interests of the wretched inhabitants-Chinese and Tungan-they ought to leave them to the mercilessness of the fierce Tarantchis, unless the Chinese provide an army strong enough to keep order. Such fearful massacres as were perpetrated at the time of the insurrection cannot be permitted to be repeated. But so little confidence have the few Chinese now remaining in Kuldja in the power of the "Khitay" to protect them, that they make no secret of their intention to leave the moment the Russians withdraw.

TIBET.

The resident in the northern parts of India finds his view all along that frontier of the empire bounded by a giant range of mountains, the Himalayas. At least, so the maps represent it. In reality these mountains are more properly a mountainous country, wide in extent, and "often consisting of high parallel ranges divided by great rivers (both ranges and rivers running longitudinally in the same direction of the entire chain)," and finally reaching "a high barren plateau, supported on the outer ranges as on a series of walls." This high plateau is Tibet, Thibet, or Tubet, Bod, Bot, or Bodyul-the land of Bod—of the natives, and one of the subject countries of China. With the north-eastern part of the country we are still only slightly acquainted, but from what is known of it the area of Tibet is roughly estimated to be from 600,000 to 800,000 miles, and the population at 6,000,000. The most part of this area is enclosed in the angle between the Hindoo Koosh, Pamir Highlands, the chain of the Kuen-lun Mountains, and the great range of the Himalayas; but though usually designated a plateau, in reality it is a "table with the legs turned up." In other words, it is traversed by several mountain ranges

which near its western and eastern frontiers interlace in so complicated a manner as to deprive the table-land of any likeness to the upland plain usually so designated. The average elevation of the southern portion is 13,500 feet, though in places it rises to the height of 16,000 feet; but in the north and east it is believed that the tract of country descends to much lower levels. The great Himalayas, twenty summits of which are higher than the loftiest of the Andes, and which we shall by-and-by have something to say about when we cross the ranges on our way out of India, are only connected with the plateau by ridges of lesser elevation, which, to use the simile of a geographer, "project from the highlands like buttresses which rise higher than the walls which they support." The Tibetan table-land stretches away eastward towards the frontier of China proper, but it can only be approached from India through mountain gorges cut out by torrents, and of the wildest and most picturesque grandeur. The four provinces of Tibet are usually divided between the eastern and western divisions of the country, the first region being drained by the Sanpoo,* which lower down is successively known by the more familiar names of the Dehong and Brahmapootra, and the other by the Indus. Both these rivers lie close together, but they soon separate, the one running eastward and the other westward, and both finally breaking through mountains to the southward, and before they fall into the sea embracing between them the whole of northern India. 66 Imagine," writes Mr. Shaw, "a wall supporting behind it a terrace of gravel. Suppose the gravel terrace to be hog-backed in the middle, so that the waters rising there run away to the right and to the left till they each find a low place in the wall, and escape away through it." This is the relation which Tibet and its rivers and the Himalayan chain bear to each other. It is still a mysterious region, for the Chinese exclusiveness is there developed to a very pronounced extent; and though travellers have perseveringly endeavoured to enter it, and in many cases have partially succeeded, yet their observations have been conducted under great difficulties, and in every case have been of a very limited character. But in spite of Tibet proper not being well known, the outliers of the country are more familiar, for natives of Ladâk (pp. 101, 109)-sometimes known as Middle Tibet, though politically a part of the Maharajah of Kashmir's territories-Zanskar, and other waifs and strays from the more accessible portion of Western Tibet, every year visit the Kangra and other Indo-Himalayan valleys. "Black tents of peculiar make appear for a few days at a time in the winter on open spaces by the roadsides, and shelter dingy families of narrow-eyed Tibetans-petty traders who come down with their wares. They are not prepossessing in appearance, with their high cheek-bones, their dirt, and their long pigtails; but they are the most good-tempered of mortals, and they always greet you with a grin. Moreover, every year the few English sportsmen who penetrate into the wilder parts of Ladak bring down reports of the wonderful animals to be found there, and of the curious customs of the Buddhist inhabitants. Wild sheep as large as ponies, wild cattle with bushy tails like horses, and long hair on their flanks reaching nearly to the ground, besides

That is, "the River." In that portion of its course still unexplored it falls 8,000 feet, if not more, so that future explorations must result in some grand discoveries in fluvial geography. (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, 1879, p. 274.)