like a lamb, we had but too sure a presentiment of what was coming. It blew fiercely all day, and we walked during the greater part of it. The slight covering of snow on the ground soon melted under the combined action of the sun and wind. The latter agency is certainly the more powerful of the two, when the atmosphere is above freezing temperature. Our nights were always very frosty, but the sun had still sufficient influence during the middle of the day to moisten the surface of the ground. Over a steep pass and down into another valley we joined the main road, which is now very broad and good. Our march continued to be diversified by valleys and undulations, the scene constantly changing, and now and again opening out enchanting views of scenery, with every variety of rock and river, wooded hills and high mountain ranges tumbling on each other. The wind, that had blown bitterly cold all day, lulled at sunset; the sky continued clear, and we had a calm frosty night. Halted at 10 p.m. in _Gurun-dsata_, a broad rich valley, with abundant grass, and supporting vast herds of cattle, which the clear moonlight revealed to us. The beauties of this spot were only fully discovered at sunrise the next morning, which being calm and fine, we were in the best humour to enjoy the rocky, woody, and pastoral scenes around us. It was plain we had got into a country altogether different from the Mongol steppes. The valleys are all watered by streams, and the soil susceptible of high cultivation. We are now frightened with another bugbear, in the shape of an unfordable river, the _Khara-gol_, or "black-river." It seemed we were destined to be delayed by every possible contrivance of nature, for these rivers are very rarely flooded. Were it otherwise, some device would certainly have been found to meet the emergency. It was all the more hard, therefore, that these paltry little Mongol rivers should get themselves up into such a state of fury just when we were passing through the country.