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swiftly over some narrow valley, the days are unnecessarily shortened, while the mornings and evenings grow cloudier and more chilly. You are dependent on sunning yourself in the open air; and should the weather turn out to be wet, which is far more likely in some localities than others, you are shut up a close prisoner in a house built for the sunshine, with your melancholy thoughts for companions. And in the smaller baths, there are not the same spacious saloons and light and airy arcades in which you can take refuge from the rain; while necessarily it is much more of a chance that you find yourself there in cheerful company. Of course you must take care that you make no awkward mistake in the waters; for they say, for example, that those of Schwalbach are carboniferous apoplexy for full-blooded gentlemen. But after guarding against accidents so easily avoided, we believe that the first thing one should look for at a bath is liveliness, and the next, invigorating and exhilarating air. If a patient can pull round at the gloomy gorge of Peffers, it speaks worlds for his intense vitality and the inherent vigour of his constitution; while the fresh breezes from the Taunus, and the sunny open landscape about Homburg, must be highly stimulating in themselves, although in actual charms of scenery the place might easily be improved upon.

After all, belated invalids at these upland Brunnen of Nassau may carry themselves cheerfully to the end of what they feel to be a trying dispensation by reflecting on the lot of the natives they leave behind. Already, in the last days of September, the signs of the coming winter are setting in. The venetian shutters have been fast closing everywhere. The bath establish

ment cuts down its strength, and inconveniently circumscribes the bathing hours. The band packs up and retires with bag and baggage. The hair-dresser follows. The menus at the hotels become more meagre, and the vegetables threaten to give out altogether. The vendors of fancy goods set still higher prices on the remainder of their dwindled stocks, in a last desperate effort at realisation. The administration stops its duplicate copy of the 'Times.' The bath-chairmen and carriage-drivers lock away their vehicles, and betake themselves to their sylvan avocations. The communications are being cut on all sides; diligences and omnibuses are being run off the roads, with the solitary exception of the Wiesbaden postwagen, which carries travellers in the wrong direction for Englishmen. Next the administration stops the penny London papers, the evening journals, and the illustrated weeklies; and finally you see rough-boarded shutters being nailed up everywhere against the verandahs and windows of the houses in the more exposed situations. There is a general stampede of the servants, those of the greater hotels not excepted, where the landlord withdraws with the family to hibernate in his smallest rooms on the ground-floor. And then your mind's eye begins to lose itself in a vision of snow-storms; of wreaths heaped high in each cutting and each corner of the bleak roads, raising impassable barriers between the little imprisoned community and the outer world; of a wind that can be bitter even in August, howling down from the hills, shivering the festoons of icicles, and whistling in through the crevices in the walls and woodwork; and we let the curtain fall behind us in blinding snowdrift on Schwalbach snow-shrouded for its winter's sleep.

It is now more than a quarter of a century since the reading public were amused and puzzled by the appearance of a book,* purporting to be an account of the travels of two Roman Catholic priests, named Huc and Gabet, in Tartary, Thibet, and China. It was difficult to know whether the work was a record of truth, or a romance based on certain geographical data, but dressed up by the fertile imagination of a clever Frenchman. Such strange stories were told in it of people and countries almost wholly unknown to Europeans-and the writer, even if he had performed the journey with his companion, seemed to be a man of such childish credulity, that it was difficult to put faith in what he said. In fact, it was almost impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff; and the result was, that the book, notwithstanding its lively and gossiping style, fell generally into discredit and neglect.

Even his own countrymen were disposed to look upon Huc's work as half a fiction; and in one of the letters sent to Russia by Colonel Prejevalsky during his journey, of which we intend in this article to give an account, he seems to imply a doubt of the genuine character of the book. But Colonel Yule (so well known by his admirable edition of Marco Polo, and his numerous contributions to our know

ledge of the East) says, in the introductory remarks with which he has enriched the Russian narrative, "Prejevalsky's own plain tale is the

best refutation of such suspicions. For it is wonderful, to the extent of the coincidence of their routes, how the representations of the glib French priest and the Russian soldier agree." Since Huc wrote, our geographical knowledge of Central and Eastern Asia has been largely extended. The journey of Schlagintweit to Kashgar, where he was murdered in 1857, was the first achieved from the Indian side. Colonel Montgomerie organised expeditions into the unknown region by trained Pundits, whom Colonel Yule calls a kind of scientific lighthorse. "Shaw and Hayward and Johnson were the pioneers of British exploration in Eastern Turkistan, and these have been followed by the less perilous journeys of Sir D. Forsyth and his companions; by the ride of the latter across Pamir, and by their success in connecting, at least by preliminary survey, our own scientific frontier with that of Russia." Colonel Yule adds: "Of all Russian incursions on the tracts that we have designated as the unknown, Lieut. Col. Prejevalsky's has been the boldest, the most persevering, and the most extensive."

He was, and, we believe, still is, a member of the Russian Staff Corps, and had been already known as an able explorer. In 1870 he was deputed by the Imperial Geographical Society of St Petersburg, under the sanction of the War Department, to conduct an exploration into Southern Mongo

Sampson Low & Co.: 1876.

1850.

lia; and performed the journey-or rather, series of journeys-with a young companion, Michail Alexandrovitch Pyltseff. The result is a most interesting work in two volumes, which have been ably translated by Mr Delman Morgan, and from which we obtain the best and most authentic account of a region which may be almost described as the hitherto UNKNOWN.

Early in November 1870, the two Russian officers posted through Siberia until they arrived at Kiakhta, on the south-east frontier. Here the inhabitants are a mixture of Mongols and Chinese- the one known by their high cheek-bones, and the other by their pigtails. Their first object was to obtain a passport from the Chinese Government at Peking, in order to enable them to visit the remoter regions of the Celestial Empire. There are two modes of conveyance across the desert of Gobi, from Kiakhta to Peking-either by post-horses or caravan-camels. The Mongols contract to carry the post as far as Kalgan, on the eastern edge of the desert; and the Chinese the rest of the way. The entire distance is 1000 miles. Our travellers chose the camel-caravan, which means a cart like a great square wooden box, set on two wheels, and closed on all sides. Colonel Prejevalsky says: "The shaking in this kind of car baffles description. The smallest stone or lump of earth over which one of the wheels may chance to roll, produces a violent jolting of the whole vehicle, and consequently of its unfortunate occupant." They made a bargain with their conductor that the journey to Kalgan was not to exceed forty days; and set out accompanied by a Cossack, who was to act as interpreter of the Mongolian language, and by a favourite setter-dog called "Faust," who was the faithful companion of their

journeys for many thousand miles, until he fell a victim to the drought of the desert of Gobi, as we shall afterwards have occasion to relate. From Kiakhta to Urga, on the north-western margin of the desert, the country is hilly, with abundance of trees and water, and luxuriant pasturage on the gentler slopes of the hills. The soil is mostly black earth or loam, well adapted for tillage; but there is no agriculture, and only a few acres, about 100 miles from Kiakhta, have been cultivated by Chinese settlers. Urga is divided into two halves, the one Mongolian, and the other Chinese. They are nearly three miles apart; and midway between the two, on rising ground, near the bank of the river Tola, is the two-storey house of the Russian consul, with its wings and out-buildings. Outwardly, the Mongol part of Urga is disgustingly dirty; but, indeed, this description applies to Mongolians everywhere, both in their yurtas, or tents, and persons and Prejevalsky truly says, "the habits of the people are loathsome." At Urga the Siberian character of Northern Mongolia ceases. On crossing the Tola the traveller leaves behind him the last remaining stream, and southwards as far as the borders of China proper lies the terrible desert of Gobi.

Into this wilderness the Russian travellers now plunged.

"Our days dragged on with tedious monotony. Following the central caravan route, we generally started at mid-day, and marched till midnight, averaging twenty-seven to thirty-three miles per diem. During the day-time, my companion and I generally went ahead of the caravan, and shot any birds we saw."

Notwithstanding the barren and desolate appearance of the Gobi, the road to Kalgan was kept alive by the tea-caravans which passed by the dozen daily. In early

exaggerated, for the houses are often wide apart, and there are numbers of ruins scattered about the town. In fact, Peking may be described in the words which an American applied to Rome, as a city pretty considerably gone to decay." The stench of the streets is almost intolerable: "collectors of manure are continually moving about plying their trade with baskets on their arms; the smells are beyond description; and the water used for laying the dust is taken from the sewers." When a relative of our own visited Peking last year, he found his curiosity overcome by his disgust, and shut himself up in the house of the British Embassy to protect his nose from the offensive effluvia.

The object of Colonel Prejevalsky and his companions in visiting Peking was, as we have already said, to obtain a passport, and also the means of outfit for their long and hazardous journey. Their plan was "to strike the northern head of the Yellow River, visit the country of Ordos and Lake Koko-nor, and, in fact, explore regions almost entirely unknown to Europeans." But their chief difficulty was the meagre state of their finances. Including Prejevalsky's salary, they received from St Petersburg for the first year of their travels £350, and on the second and third the amount was increased to £500. But in addition to this, if we understand the narrative aright, M. Pyltseff received the first year £40, and the two following £80. They engaged two Cossacks to accompany them, and paid each of them £28 a-year. They could not afford to hire a good interpreter of the Mongol language, and were obliged to content themselves for this purpose with the services of one of these Cossacks, who was by turns labourer, herdsman, and cook. When they had completed all the

necessary purchases, they started from Peking with only £65 in silver cash.

Having obtained the requisite passports, but being obliged to wait for the arrival of the two Cossacks who were to go with them into the heart of Mongolia, they determined to occupy the interval in exploring that part of it which lies to the north of Peking, in the direction of the town of Dolon-nor, which lies in the hilly region to the north of Kalgan, on the eastern edge of the desert. They left Peking early in March 1870, and proceeded across the level plain to the northern range of mountains which, in the direction of Dolon-nor, forms a belt 100 miles in width, running east and west in parallel chains. The valleys are covered with villages or detached farmhouses, surrounded by culti vated fields; and the road is tra versed by numerous trains of carts, asses, and camels, carrying rice and millet to Peking, with large droves of swine driven to the capital to supply the wants of the pork-loving Celestials. Dolon-nor lies on an elevated plain, and means in the Mongolian language "seven lakes," which formerly existed near the town, but are now covered with sand-drift. The Chinese name is Lama-mian, or "Lama monastery." The place is remarkable for its foundry of idols in cast-iron and bronze, which are sent thence all over Mongolia and Thibet. Colonel Prejevalsky says that they are wonderfully executed, considering that they are all made by artificers working in separate houses. From Dolonnor they proceeded to the lake of Dalai-nor, 100 miles to the north. The road 27 miles beyond Dolonnor passes over a succession of sandy hillocks, in some places quite bare, but more frequently covered with grass or willow-bushes, interspersed here and there with oak, lime, and