several centuries, the Chinese armies watched from the top of that great wall.
636. Russian conquest and the railroad.— After railroads made traveling easier, the Russian Empire conquered all this country.
About 1880 a Russian railroad was built con necting Tashkend, Samarkand, and Mery with the steamboats on the Caspian. Later a more direct line was built from Orenburg, on the Ural, to Tashkend.
The railroad made a great and sudden change in trade. For hundreds and thou sands of years these towns had sent light things, such as wool, skins, handmade rugs, and silks, by caravan to Bagdad, Constantinople, and Nizhni Novgorod. Then came the railroad and made it possible to ship heavy things too. In a short time the oasis orchards began to supply Russia with dried apricots, and with cotton, which grows here in the hot sum mer, as it does in Arizona.
637. Future.—There can be no great increase of population in this region, except by irrigating more land. The grasslands have been fully used for ages.
is little used because it has little that man can use—it is so high, so cold, so dry, so hot, and so hard to reach. Geogra phers usually speak of it under the names of its four parts: Tibet, Sin Kiang (or Eastern Turkestan), Mon golia, and Afghanistan.
639. Tibet.—A few years ago an Englishman with his camel train left Srina gar in the province of Kashmir in northern India for an exploring trip across Tibet. Traveling was so difficult that it took him eighty days to reach Kho tan in Sin Kiang. How far is it? The journey took him across the north western corner of the plateau of Tibet, the highest plateau in the world. Large areas of it are higher than Pikes Peak or the top of the Alps. As the plateau is shut in on the south by the still higher walls of the Himalaya Mountains, the winds from the ocean cannot bring much rain to Tibet and the other Central Asia plateaus. Therefore the region is dry. Because it is very high, it is cool in summer, and in winter so very cold and snowy that much of it is quite impassable.
Perhaps you see now why the Tibetans have been able to keep nearly all strangers out and to keep their country to themselves like a little closed world. You can also see why Tibet is sparsely peopled and by shep herds only, except for a few towns in valleys where snow water permits irrigation.
The Himalaya Mountains, the highest in the world, are little known because traveling there is almost impossible, and because the natives have not wanted white men to go there. Until 1921 no white man had ever been within sixty miles of Mt. Everest, the highest peak in the world. In 1921 the greatest mountain-climbing expedition ever seen set out from London for a two years' campaign to find a path to Everest and if possible, to climb it. Can you tell something about this expedition? 640. Turkestan and Mongolia.—The pla
teaus of Turkestan and Mongolia are not so high as that of Tibet, but they are much drier and most of their surface is desert. These wide, dry plateaus of Central Asia are so difficult to cross that they keep peoples apart. A journey from Samarkand in Russian (western) Turkestan to Peking in China is longer than a journey from New York to San Francisco. Take the map (Fig. 474) and trace out the route. From Kashgar to Hami the camels must follow the base of the high Tianshan Mountains. Small streams, fed by melting snow, run down to the edge of the plain and furnish drinking water, a little pasture, and perhaps a few irrigated gardens, making a string of little oases at the edge of the great, dead desert of the Tarim basin. Trace a caravan route from Peking across Mongolia. (Fig.529.) 641. The nomad shepherds.—A few nom ads with sheep, goats, and camels get only a scanty living on this high, dry world, that is hot in summer and bitter cold in winter. They know the water-holes and mountain pastures, and they believe it brings bad luck to plow the ground. By caravan they send out bales of wool, and skins from their flocks and from the wild deer, antelope, and other animals that they hunt.
China claims to rule Mongolia, Sin Kiang (or Eastern Turkestan), and Tibet. China has governors in such towns as Kashgar and Hami, but most of the people are nomads and rule themselves, because the governors in an oasis town do not know where the nomads may be at any particular time because they are constantly on the move.
642. Afghanistan is not as high as Tibet, and a railroad might be built through the country from the plains of Central Asia to the plains of India without much difficulty. Before the World War there was a jealous fear between Russia and England that an army might follow such a route. Neither nation was willing to have the armies or rail roads of the other enter Afghanistan, so both nations left Afghanistan as a kind of no-man's land. Its ruler, a tyrannical despot called the Amir, has but little authority over some of the wild tribes that live in the high mountain pastures, the little irrigated val leys, and the dry plains that are so hot in summer and so cold in winter.
643. Future.—Afghanistan, Tibet, Sin Kiang, and Mongolia are nearly as large as the United States, but have few men in their wide spaces. With no large streams for irriga tion, this land will continue in the future in much the same condition as at pres ent, except where valuable minerals may be discov ered. In that case rail roads may be built and mining towns may spring up as quickly as they have done in Nevada. (Sec. 141.) Already much gold and copper have been pro duced on the Siberian side of the Altai Mountains, which form a part of the great mountain wall along the northwestern edge of the region.