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HISTORICAL EOUTES. 89
continent, and which is connected with all the routes of the Aralo-Caspian depres-
sion. Thus from the Black Irtish to the Ili River, a distance of about 300 miles,
the semicircle of plateaux and mountain ranges surrounding the Chinese Empire
is interrupted at various points by valleys and depressions of easy access. Through
these natural highways the devastating hosts of the Huns, Uigurs, and Mongols
advanced westwards, and the same tracks were followed by the Chinese when they
overran the only districts which they still possess on the western slope of the con-
Fig.
35. EBI-NOR.
According to Mouchketov. Scale 1 : 1,200,000.
Erffe 62-3Q- 8330'
. 30
Miles.
tinent. Those are, on the one hand, the Upper Irtish valley, on the other that of
the Ili.
The Russians, on their part, were full}' aware, from the time of the first inva-
sion of Siberia, that the road to China lay between the Altai and the Tian-shan.
For it was in this depression that they sought for the great lake of Kitai, a name
since extended by them to the whole Chinese Empire. Nevertheless this was not
the way they first took. Peking lying far from the centre of China, they were
obliged to go round by the bleak and elevated eastern plateaux of Mongolia in order
to reacli that city from Kiakhta. But they now perceive how much better for
their trade it would be to go directly from West Siberia through Zungaria and
Kansu to China. From Xaisau to Hankow, which may be regarded as the true
centre of the empire, there are no serious obstacles, and, except a break of about
39