Near the edge of this plain we began to encounter a few sand dunes with outcrops, very similar to those on the coast line of our own country. Over these we gently ran day after day until we could see vast fields of sand and scrub that it must have taken thousands of years of gale and hurricane to deposit in the quaint pyramidal fashion in which they stand to-day. Even yet they are not fixed; occasionally a tree falls exposing the naked sand to the action of the wind, which swirls around the hole and moves the sand into a spiral whirlpool, lifting and carrying it away to be deposited again on the lea side of a distant valley, choking the pines and silver birch and sometimes destroying large woods and forests. It is surprising that though we travelled for hundreds of miles along the edge of this huge sand plateau we did not see a single rivulet or stream coming from its direction, though there were the traces of a river far out on the plain. Sunset on these sand-hills was quite entrancing. The occasional break in these conical formations, when the sun was low down, gave one the impression of a vast collection of human habitations, with gable ends to the highest of the buildings. The fact is, however, that, so far as we saw or could make out, no human habitation exists over the whole face of this sea of sand, though men live quite calmly around the craters of volcanoes and other equally dangerous and impossible places. The fear created by legends of human disaster attaching to the local history of these sands is of such a character that even the daring of the Tartar is for once mastered. The sands themselves when on the move are dangerous enough, but their cup-like formation would hide armies until the traveller was in their midst, when retreat would be impossible. The same applies with greater force to the banditti or beasts of the desert; hence the gloomy history and legends of the Mongolian sands.