Volume 1
Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846 / translated by William Hazlitt; now edited with an introduction by Professor Paul Pelliot.
- Évariste Régis Huc
- Date:
- [1928]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846 / translated by William Hazlitt; now edited with an introduction by Professor Paul Pelliot. Source: Wellcome Collection.
412/446 page 358
![in China as anywhere else, and able to travel without fear, and with our heads eredt in the open face of day. After two days’ journey we arrived at Tchong-Wei [Chung-wei], on the banks of the Yellow River, a walled town of moderate size. Its cleanliness, its good condition, its air of comfort, contracted singu¬ larly with the wretchedness and ugliness of Ning-Hia ; and judging merely from its innumerable shops, all well Clocked, and from the large population crowding its ftreets, we should pronounce Tchong-Wei to be a place of much commercial importance ; yet the Chinese of this district have no notion of navigation, and not a boat is to be seen on the Yellow River in this quarter—a circumCtance remarkable in itself, and confirmatory of the opinion that the inhabitants of this part of Kan-Sou are of Thibetian and Tartar origin ; for it is well known that the Chinese are everywhere passionately addidted to navigating Ctreams and rivers. On quitting Tchong-Wei we passed the Great Wall, which is wholly composed of uncemented stones, placed one on top of the other ; and we re-entered Tartary for a few days, in the kingdom of the Alechan. More than once the Mongol Lamas had depidfed in frightful colours the horrors of the Alechan mountains. We were now in a position to see with our own eyes that the reality exceeds all description of this frightful diCtrift. The Alechans are a long chain of mountains, wholly composed of moving sand, so fine that when you touch it, it seems to flow through your finger like a liquid. It were superfluous to add that, amid these gigantic accumulations of sand, you do not find any¬ where the lea ft trace of vegetation. The monotonous aspedt of these immense sands is only relieved by the veftiges of a small insedt, that, in its capricious and fantastical sports, describes a thousand arabesques on the moving mass, which is so smooth and fine that you](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3135953x_0001_0412.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
