St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-03-14
RUSsIA,s EXPLORER.

RDSSIA'S EXPLORER.
Explorations Into the Vast Region
Lying Between siberia and China.
New York Sun.
Col. Prejevalsl1y, the greatest of Russian
travellers, has returned from his fourth
series of explorations in the vast region Iy-
ing between Siberia and China. These
journeys, covering distance of about 90
600 miles. have made additions to our
knowledge of Mongolia, Thibet, and East
em or Chinese Turkestan, and Prejevalsky
has pioneered the way into some great dis
tricts that had hitherto been unexplored.
His latest travels have occupied nearly two
years, and he returns with large collections
and great deal of novel and interesting in
formation.
He has won in his journey his best lau-
rels as an explorer by his discovery of the
upper waters of the two great rivers of
China. The Chinese attempted before the
Christian era and again i'm the last century
to explore the head waters in Northern
Thibet of the Hoang-ho and Yang-tSe- Kiang
rivers, but their expeditions were driven
back by fierce mountain tribes, and this
part of Thibet has remained until the pre-
sent day a region almost wholly unknown
to geographers. Prejevalsky's little band
of fourteen men did not win the honor they
coveted without two severe fights with the
savage Tangutans. The superiority of
their weapons was all that saved the Russ
ian expedition. The flint locks of tlI8 ma
tiyes were no match for the Berdan rifles.
Prejevalsky's party came out unscathed,
but in defending their lives they killed and
wounded forty men, the only deplorable in
cident in Prejevalsky's long career
AS A TRAVELLER.
In the mountains, nearly IA, 600 feet
above the sea, the explorer found the two
or three modest streams, each about seventy
feet wide and shallow, that form the
sources of the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River,
which he followed for some distance to-
ward the boundaries of China. Then. after
retracing his steps. he went southwark, and
at a distance of only sixty-seven miles
from the HOang-ho reached the muddy and
rapid waters of the Yang-tse-Kiang at
point where the river, hemmed in by high
mountains, is 500 feet wide and very deep.
He spent several weeks in this region.
which no white man had ever before visited.
His letters, preceding the detailed his
tory of the expedition vet TO be written.
give us wonderful pictures of some of the
strangest and most diversified portion of the
earths surface. Leaving Siberia at Kiachta
he crossed the great Cobb Desert at its
widest, travelling 700 miles over its northern
grassy steppes and the sea OF sand south of
them extending to China. A desert noted
for its terrible cold i'm winter, its almost
tropical heat in summer, a scarcity of water
and general barrenness, the MongolS. never
theless, inhabit all parts of it, their flOcks
subsistIng on the poorest fodder. Then he
traversed a part of
THE PLATEAU OF NORTHERN THIBET,
where the enormous altitude of the plains
from Is, 900 to Is. 900 feet above the sea
prOlOngs winter until June and July i'm lat
itudes considerably south of New York.
He visited the interesting lakes that diver
sify these most elevated regions in the world,
and explored the mountain masses that wall
III the entire northern frontier of Thibet.
Then he made his way along the chain of
beautiful and highly cultivated little oases,
that appear like little green islands in the
wild desert west of famous Lob-noOr.
Defeated once more by the Chinese I'm his
efforts to reach Lhassa, the Rome of Bud
dhism, through Western Thibet, he made
his way through Eastern Turkestan to the
Russian territory in Central Asia.
The explorer says that gold is plentiful
i'm Northern Thibet. Not far from the
sources of Hoang-ho he found natives
washing gold. Though they dug only one
or two feet below the surface, he says they
showed him whole handfuls of gold in
Jumps as big as peas, and he believes that
with careful working vast treasures would
be found here. He predicts that in the
course of time Northern Thibet will be
found to be as rich. and perhaps richer,
than California in the precious metals that
lie in the soil of this desert table-land.
Preievalsky asserts that the Mongols,
Thibetans, and other people living along
the North Thibetan border and in Chinese
Turkestan are heartily
TIRED OF CHINA's OPPRESSIVE RULE
and burdensOme taxation. and that many of
them long to become subjects of Russia.
He was repeatedly told by the chiefs Of the
Oases and mountain tribes that If Russia
would give them a leader they would revolt
against China and join their fortunes with
Russian Turkestan. As an instance of the
tyranny of the Chinese governors he tells of
a remarkable artihce employed while ago
by the Chinese to get possession of the
herds and the six chests of silver belonging
to the chief of the Door little tribe at Lob
moor. The edict suddenly went forth that
the people of Lob-noor must wear pigtais.
The Lob-noorian had always shaved their
heads. and they were frightened by the
order to adopt a detested Chinese custom.
Before they succeeded i'm having the Odious
edict revoked their chief was compelled to
part with all his wealth.
Prejevalsky, though the most prominent,
is only one of q score of trained and able
Russian explorers who, in the interest of
their government, are seeking out every
little known region in inner Asia. Russ
las thirst for Asiatic conquest is not yet
quenched, and there are many facts indi-
eating that just as she wrested Kuldja and
the Amoor from China, she will some day,
in all probability, add Eastern Turkestan,
already estranged from her Oriental master.
to the Russian provinces that are now its
next door neighbors.