The topographical features of this region are still imperfectly known, and its inhospitable climate is rendered more dangerous by man’s barbarity. High mountain masses alternate with narrow valleys and a few large depressions containing lakes; the country lying south of the Azure Sea, as far as Burmah, is exceedingly mountainous. West and southwest of the lake extends the plain of Tsaidam, which at a recent geological age has been the bed of a huge lake; it is now covered with morasses, shaking bogs, small rivers, and sheets of water--the most considerable of the latter being Lake Kara, in the extreme western portion. The saline argillaceous soil of this region is not adapted to vegetation. Large animals are scarce, due in part to the plague of insects which compels even the natives to retreat to the mountains with their herds during certain seasons. Its inhabitants are the same as those of Eastern Koko-nor; they are divided into five banners, and number about 1,000 _yurts_, or 5,000 souls.
The Burkhan-buddha range forms the southern boundary of this plain, and the northernmost limit of the lofty plateau of Tibet. Its length from east to west is not far from 130 miles, its eastern extremity being near the Yegrai-ula (the near sources of the Yellow River) and Toso-nor. The range has no lofty peaks, and stretches in an unbroken chain at a height of 15,000 to 16,000 feet; it is terribly barren, but does not attain the line of perpetual snow. The southern range, which separates the headwaters of the Yellow and Yangtsz’ Rivers, is called the Bayan-kara Mountains; that northwest of this is called on Chinese maps, Kílien shan and Nan shan, and bounds the desert on the south. On the northern declivities of the Nan shan range are several towns lying on or near the road leading across Central Asia, which leaves the valley of the Yellow River at Lanchau, in Kansuh, and runs N.N.W. over a rough country to Liangchau, a town of some importance situated in a fertile and populous district. From this place it goes northwest to Kanchau, noted for its manufactures of felted cloths which are in demand among the Mongol tribes of Koko-nor, and where large quantities of rhubarb, horses, sheep, and other commodities are procured. Going still northwest, the traveller reaches Suhchau, the last large place before passing the Great Wall, which renders it a mart for provisions and all articles brought from the west in exchange for the manufactures of China. This city was the last stronghold of the Dungani Moslems, and when they were destroyed in 1873 it began to revive out of its ruins. About fifty miles from this town is the pass of Kiayü, beyond which the road to Hami, Urumtsi, and Ílí leads directly across the desert, here about three hundred miles wide. This route has been for ages the line of internal communication between the west of China and the regions lying around and in the basins of the Tarim River and the Caspian.[110] A better idea of the security of traffic and caravans within the Empire, and consequently of the goodness of the Chinese rule, is obtained by comparing the usually safe travel on this route with the hazards, robberies, and poverty formerly met with on the great roads in Bokhara, and the regions south and west of the Belur tag.