made by Islam Bay. We struggled for four hours before
at last the irritating river was behind us.

In Liang-chau, a town of 100,000 inhabitants, with a quadrangular wall,
handsome gates, and broad, busy streets, we stayed with some
missionaries. Here we had to wait twelve whole days before we could
procure nine camels and two men who were willing to take us to the town
Ning-hsia on the Yellow River, nearly 300 miles off. The missionaries
had no other guest-room than their chapel, which was rather cold; on
Christmas Eve the temperature inside was 3 deg.

For twenty days we travelled through a country called Ala-shan, which
for the most part is inhabited by Mongols. We followed a desert track
and encamped at wells. Certain belts were buried in drift sand which
formed wave-like dunes. Here we were outside China proper and the Great
Wall, but we frequently met Chinese caravans. Two horsemen had been
assigned to me as an escort by the last Chinese governor, for the
country is unsafe owing to robbers. All, however, went well, and we came
safely to Ning-hsia on the Yellow River.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTHERN CHINA AND MONGOLIA, SHOWING JOURNEY FROM
TIBET THROUGH SI-NING TO PEKING, AND FROM PEKING TO KANSK (pp. 172-179).

At the time of Dr. Hedin's journey through Mongolia, the Trans-Siberian
Railway did not extend east of Kansk.]

From Ning-hsia we had 267 miles to the town Pao-te, and now we had to
cross the Mongolian district of Ordos, between the Great Wall and the
northern bend of the Yellow River. In summer it is better to travel by
boat down the river, which rises in north-eastern Tibet and falls into
the northern bay of the Yellow Sea after a course of 2500 miles. The
river owes its name to its turbid yellow water, which makes the sea also
yellow for some distance from the coast. Elsewhere the Yellow Sea is no
yellower than any other.

At that time, in January, the Yellow River was covered with thick ice,
and where we crossed it with our nine camels its breadth was 380 yards.
Then we made long days' marches through the desert, and had a very hard
and troublesome journey. We had indeed with us enough mutton, bread, and
rice, and there were wells along the road. One of them was 130 feet deep
and was walled round. But we suffered from cold. Sometimes the
temperature was only 1.5 deg. at noon, -27 deg. at night, and 16.5 deg.
in the tent. Besides, it blew steadily and with the velocity of a
hurricane. Fortunately I