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EAST ASIA.
1,200 square miles, but with no outflow, although receiving
amphitheatre
the waters of a vast
of hills. The other lakes, also saline because without emissaries, if
less extensive than the Ubsa-nor, sometimes belong to larger hydrographic systems.
The river Dsabgan, rising on the southern slope of the Tannu-ola, sweeps round the
north-west corner of the hilly
TJliasutai plateau, and after receiving its torrents
disappears in the saline marshes south of the Ubsa-nor. To the same basin belongs
the Kobdo or Kara-su Lake, which receives the waters of the Ektag Altai through
the rivers Kobdo and Buyantu. The lower lakes are fringed by poplars and
aspens ; but elsewhere trees are rare, and the vegetation of these hilly regions on
the whole resembles that of the steppe.
East of the Tannu-ola the Mongolian territory penetrates far into the region
draining to the Arctic Ocean ; for the Upper Yenisei and Selenga basins, which
flow to the great
Siberian rivers, still belong to Mongolia. The nomad pastors
of the
"
Grassy Lands " naturally sought to extend their domain to the whole region of
pasturage. Southwards their natural limit is the desert, northwards the forest.
All the intermediate zone, in whatever direction the rivers may flow, is frequented
by their flocks. Hence they have occupied all the " Kern," or head-streams of the
Yenisei, besides the extensive basin of the Selenga, Here is. the romantic Kosogol,
whose blue waters, sacred in the eyes of the Mongolian Buddhists, reflect the
lofty crest of the Munku-sardik, with its larch groves,
red escarpments, and diadem
of glaciers. The Koso-gol is not a closed basin,
plateau ;
like the lakes of the Kobdo
for it discharges its sweet waters through the Eke-gol to the Selenga,
North-east Mongolia, lying east of the Selenga, may be regarded as belonging
to the Amur basin ; for the Kemlen, which flows parallel with the Onon to the
Dalai, or " Sea," formerly united to the Kha'ilar, is one of the chief affluents of the
Argun, or Upper Amur.
THE GOBI DESERT.
South of this region stretches the Gobi desert, which, although crossed by some
caravan routes, is nowhere permanently inhabited. The Gobi that is,
"
Sandy
Desert," or "Shamo" of the Chinese forms the eastern extremity of the vast zone
of arid lands obliquely traversing the eastern hemisphere from Senegal to the
Khingan range. Like the Takla-makan, the Western Turkestan sands, the Persian
and Arabian wastes, and the Sahara, the Gobi lies on the track of the dry winds.
In winter the prevailing atmospheric current is from the north-west, which, after
traversing the Siberian plains for a distance of 1,800 miles, discharges
its little
remaining moisture on the Sayan slopes, so that nothing is left for the Mongolian
plateaux. In summer the south-east monsoons prevail ; but nearly all the humidity
brought by them from the Pacific falls on the slopes of the parallel ranges and
terraces separating China proper from the desert plateaux.
Nevertheless the Gobi
is sometimes visited by heavy summer rains, forming here and there temporary
meres and lakes, which are soon evaporated, leaving nothing behind except a saline
efflorescence. Elsewhere the ground is furrowed by sudden torrents, and here the
nomads sink their wells, hoping thus to husband a little moisture when the plateau