The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-06
A PARIsIAN MODEL GOWN.

have filled the whole valley. Now the waters have receded, as the process of desiccatton is. going on which has en- tifely changed the geographical fea- lures of Central Asia and caused the | disappearing of great expanse of water like the Koko Nor and the dwindling of lakes and rivers from Khotan to | Gobi. The Rock of the World Is be- coming less and less inhabitable.
 From the desert to Already is not 8 | long journey; but armies travel slowly. After months of waiting and necessary delay we have reached the promised land. It was all suddenly unfolded to our view the other day. We camped beside the Yamdok Lake, near Tamal- ing. on the evening of the 23d, and some of us climbed the hill. 1000 feet. to the Khamba Pass. A sudden turn in the path brought us to the saddle. and we looked down on the great river that has been jealously guarded from European eyes for nearly a century. All the valley was covered with greer and yellow corn fields. with scattered homesteads surrounded by clusters of trees, not dwarf1sh and stunted in 8 struggle for existence. but stately and spreading trees that would grace the valley of the Thames or the Severn.
 Here was a purely pastoral land scape. Beyond lay hills even more barren and vedureIess than those we had crossed. But every mile or so green fan-shaped valleys, irrigated by clear streams, interrupted the barren ness, opening out into the main valley east and west with perfect symmetry. TO the northeast flowed the Kyichu, the valley in which Lhassa lay screened only forty miles distant.
 To the south of the pass lay the great Yamdok Lake, wild and beautI- full. its channels twining into the dark interstices of the hills-valleys of mystery and gloom where shadows fell caressingly on the laks and hills. At one moment a peak of ebony black at another--as the heavy clouds passed from over 1t, and when the suns rays illumined 1t through thin mlst--gold- en as a field of buttercups. Often at sunset the grassy cones of the hills glow like gilded pagodas, and the Tibetans, I am told, call these sun lit plots the golden ground.
 Tn bright sunlight the lake is a deep turquoise blue. but at evening time transient lights and shades fllt over 1t with the moving clouds, like forget me-not, deep purple the azure of a butterfly's wing-then all is swept away immersed in gloom before the
 
 On the 25thqI crossed the river with the 1st Mounted Cavalry and 10th Pa thans. My tent Is pitched on the roof of a rambling two-storied house, un. der the shade of a walnut tree. Crops, waist deep, grow up to the walls-bar- ley. wheat, beans and peas. On the roof are garden flowers in pots, holly hooks and marigolds. The cornfieIds are bright with English wild flowers, dandelions. buttercups, astragalus and a purple Michaelmas daisy.
 There is no village. but farm hous- es are dotted about the valley and groves of trees. walnut and peach and poplar and willow, inclosod within stone walls; wild birds that are al- most tame are nesting in the trees. black and white magpies, crested hoo pooes and turtle doves. The groves are irrigated like the fields and car peted with flowers. Homslike butter flies frequent them ana honeybeeB.
 Everything is homeiike. There is ] no mystery in the valley except It's