It was on Mount Chuga that the long train of our real miseries really began. The snow, the wind, and the cold there set to work upon us, with a fury which daily increased. The deserts of Thibet are certainly the most frightful country that it is possible to conceive. The ground continuing to rise, vegetation diminished as we advanced, and the cold grew more and more intense. Death now hovered over the unfortunate caravan. The want of water and of pasturage soon destroyed the strength of our animals. Each day we had to abandon beasts of burden that could drag themselves on no further. The turn of the men came somewhat later. The aspect of the road was of dismal auspice. For several days, we travelled through what seemed the excavations of a great cemetery. Human bones, and the carcases of animals presenting themselves at every step, seemed to warn us that, in this fatal region, amidst this savage nature, the caravans which had preceded us, had preceded us in death. To complete our misery, M. Gabet fell ill, his health abandoning him just at the moment when the frightful difficulties of the route called for redoubled energy and courage. The excessive cold he had undergone on the passage of Mount Chuga, had entirely broken up his strength. To regain his previous vigour, he needed repose, tonic drinks, and a substantial nourishment, whereas all we had to give him was barley-meal, and tea made with snow water; and, moreover, notwithstanding his extreme weakness, he had every day to ride on horseback, and to struggle against an iron climate. And we had two months more of this travelling before us, in the depth of winter. Our prospect was, indeed, sombre! Towards the commencement of September, we arrived in sight of the Bayen-Kharat, a famous chain of mountains, extending from south-east to north-west, between the Hoang-Ho and the Kin-Cha-Kiang. These two great rivers, after running a parallel course on either side of the Bayen-Kharat, then separate and take opposite directions, the one towards the north, the other towards the south. After a thousand capricious meanderings in Tartary and Thibet, they both enter the Chinese empire; and after having watered it from west to east, they approach each other, towards their mouths, and fall into the Yellow Sea very nearly together. The point at which we crossed the Bayen-Kharat is not far from the sources of the Yellow River; they lay on our left, and a couple of days’ journey would have enabled us to visit them; but this was by no means the season for pleasure trips. We had no fancy for a tourist’s excursion to the sources of the Yellow River: how to cross the Bayen-Kharat was ample occupation for our thoughts.