Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 706

G04

Travels of M. IIuc.

DEC.

and Budhist works under a lama of the name of Sandara, a cousin to Samdad-chiemba. To facilitate still further these objects, and at the recommendation of Saudara, they shortly afterwards took up their quarters at the great lamazary of Kunbun. Hence they re- moved, after the lapse of three months, to the smaller lamazary of Tchogortan, more particularly devoted to the study of medicine, whence they finally started for the Blue Sea, where they were to await the caravan of a Chinese ambassador going to H’lassa.

sea.

The Blue Lake, called by the Mongols Koko-nor, by the Tibetans Tsot-ugon Po, is called by the Chinese Tsing Hải, or "Blue Sea." Such an immense reservoir of salt-water, being upwards of 300 miles in circumference, would appear almost to merit the title of an inland There are no boats on the lake, but there is a lamazary on an island which, it is said, can only be reached in winter when the wa- ters are frozen. The environs of the lake are fertile in pasturage; the grass grows up to the height of a camel's back. M. Iluc says he could hear nothing of the Kalmucks, so much spoken of by geogra phers the name was only to be found in that of a tribe of Koko-nor, called Kolo-Kalmuki. These Kolos have a bad reputation for preda- tory habits.*

The Chinese ambassy arrived towards the end of October, and was increased in numbers by Mongolian caravans, which took advantage of the same opportunity of going to H'lassa. The caravan was pro- tected by 300 Chinese soldiers on foot, and 200 mounted Tartars. The first days of the journey, says M. Huc, were all poetry-weather magnificent, the road open and good, waters limpid, pasturages rich and abundant. The nights were cold, but they had good skins to wrap themselves

up

in. After six days' journeying, they crossed the river Puhain Gul, which, being divided into many branches, occupied a territory of a league in width. The waters were frozen over, but not in sufficient strength to bear. Imaersion in these icy waters effec- tually dispelled the poetry of the journey. Five days further on, they came to the river Tulain Gul, where the Chinese escort, who robbed the caravan in reality, while the Kolo bandits appear to have existed only in imagination, quitted them. The 15th of November they pass- ed from the magnificent plains of Koko-nor to the Mongolian district of T'saidam, which was arid and stony, and affords salt and borax by merely digging wells a few feet in depth. In this region is the moun-

* [The Chinese maps place no Kalmuks around the Blue Sca; the tribes of Hoshoits, Turbeths, and Choros are the principal divisions of the Mongols fouud in this vast depression.]