Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 603

1830.

Topography of the Province of Kánsuh.

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V. The department of Ninghiá lies in the northeastern part of the province between the Great Wall and Shensí, along the shores of the Yellow river. This town was once the capital of Tangut, and for five hundred years after the decline of the Táng dynasty, i. s. about A.D. 850, was one of the leading towns in this region. It is about five miles in circuit, and access to it is rendered difficult by its position on an island in the Yellow river, which here finds its way by many channels through a large depression, in which the labor of man has been great- ly assisted by the waters of the tiver to render it a very productive re- gion. The Holan Mts. form its boundary on the west, and serve to ward off the harsh winds of the Desert, but still the climate of Ning- hiá is very severe for lat. 39°-snow sometimes falling in April. The town is the mart of trade for the tribes wandering through the De- sert, who bring their herds and skins here to exchange for manufac- tures. Marco Polo visited Ninghia, which he calls Egrigaia, and speaks of it as a large trading-place, from whence merchants carried the camel's hair cloth manufactured there to Cathay and other parts of the world. Three towns under its jurisdiction were held at the time by Nestorian Christians. A large number of towns still exist in this region, proving the fertility of the district. A general of division, supported by generals of brigades and a large body of troops, is stationed on this frontier city, to keep in subjection the Mongols.

VI. The department of Sining extends westward of Lanchau fú to Koko-nor, north of the Yellow river, and along the banks of the R. Tá- tung, occupying one of the most fertile parts of the province. The chief town lies at the junction of the Sining and Peh-chuens rivers, and is the residence of the superintendent of the Mongol tribes of Koko-nor, who resort to this place to dispose of their surplus produce, and receive the stipend allowed them by the government. The road leading to Tibet through Northern China passes up the val- ley of the Tátung, and diverges froin Sining westerly by the Azure Sea. The road beyond the Sea lies partly over numerʊus large moun- tain masses, furrowed by narrow glens, and partly over rocky and sandy table-lands, the whole forming a desert region in which only a few mountaineers of the Hoshoit tribes are met with, and where the traveler finds no other accommodation for forty days' journey than what their tents can afford him. Sining is the entrepôt of the rhubarb which is collected on the mountains, and here are found eveu many luxuries brought by the caravans from Hami across the Desert. With- in the limits of the prefecture, a large number of settlements are met with of the nomadic Mongols, who have settled down to an agricultural

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