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98
EAST ASIA.
some places
to 4,500 and even 5,000, sinking in the lowest depressions, formerly
filled by salt lakes, to 3,000 and even 2,600 feet. Notwithstanding these discrepancies
there is little to relieve the monotony of the vast rolling plains except a
few rocky eminences rising here and there above the boundless waste of yellow
sands. For days and days the Gobi desert everywhere presents to the weary
traveller the same interminable picture of these vast undulating plains, scarcely
relieved by a few patches of scrub and lines of hillocks succeeding each other like
waves on the surface of the shoreless deep.
The soil of the Gobi proper is almost everywhere composed of reddish sands
interspersed with quartz pebbles, agates, cornelians, or chalcedony. The depres-
sions are filled with saline waters, or efflorescences of saltpetre, which the Mongols
call (jHchir, and which the camels eagerly lick as they pass. Grass is very rare,
and the yellow, grey, or reddish soil is nowhere entirely concealed by the scanty
tufts of vegetation. In the argillaceous hollows grows the dirisu (Latfiagrotitis
splendent), a shrub with twigs hard as wire, which is also a characteristic feature
of Western Turkestan. But true trees are nowhere found except perhaps in a few
Fig. 40. SECTION OF TUB GOBI BETWEEN UUGA AND KALOAN.
Itinerary of Fritsche.
Scale 1 : 10,000.000 for distances.
1 : 140,000 for elevations.
. 180 Miles.
well-sheltered cavities. From Kalgan to Urga, a distance of over 420 miles,
Pumpelly met two, and Russell-Killough five stunted trees only. Elsewhere grow
a few wretched elms, which the Mongols contemplate with a sort of awe, not daring
even to touch for fear of desecrating them. The wind, even more than the natural
barrenness of the soil, prevents the growth of any vegetation except low, pliant
herbage. Withered plants are uprooted and scattered by the gale over the steppe
like patches of foam on the stormy sea. In these regions, as on the Tibetan
plateaux, the only fuel is the droppings of the animals, which are carefully col-
lected, and which are always the first thing supplied on his arrival in the camp to
a friend or stranger for his evening fire. Such are the laws of nomad hospitality.
The fauna of the Gobi is no more varied than its flora. As in Siberia, the
steppe is often honeycombed with the burrowings of the tagomys, a species of marmot
no bigger than a rat, always inquisitive, always on the alert, incessantly
and sud-
popping out of their underground dwellings to see the passing wayfarer,
denly disappearing at his approach. Threatened by the wolf, fox, and birds of
prey, they live in a state of constant trepidation, starting at every shadow, trem-