In about three hours we reached the valley of the Ursal, which is a changing point in scenery, climate and inhabitants; the soil is much dryer, the forest on the south side of the hills becomes thin and patchy, the hills are steeper and rockier, and no more cultivation is seen except a few small patches near Russian settlements. The valley of the Ursal is flat with rocky dry hills, sparsely wooded near their summit on the north side, and thickly wooded down to the flat on the south side. It is very strange how few springs and streams are in these mountains. Whether the soil absorbs all the rain I do not know, but you only find water in the larger valleys.
The river Ursal had in many places overflowed its banks and changed its course, leaving a broad marshy flat partly covered with large larch willows and brushwood. The whole valley was full of Kalmuck yourts (which are the tents of the nomads), built Indian lodge fashion and covered with large sheets of larch bark. They bred thousands of horses in this valley. I saw several new birds, including an Otocorys, Turdus atrogularis, a pair of Cranes, and a good many Wheatears and Warblers; Cuckoos were common, Woodpeckers very scarce, and Kestrels plentiful.
We reached the Katun river on June 15th, and camped on its bank for the night—the first time we had put our tents up. We followed the Katun to its junction with the Tchu (Tchuja), up which we turned. I had filled a box with plants, intending to dry them, but when we got into camp they were too much withered to dry properly. In order to make a collection of plants of any use one must halt for some time; one cannot do enough when travelling with pack horses most of the day.
As we went on, the Tchu valley assumed a more Alpine character, and trees came in on the north side. I found a considerable change in the butterflies: Papilio machaon was common, Parnassius delius appeared at 3,500 feet or less, I took two of the rare Thecla tridvalszkyi, and, by the waterside, a fresh specimen of Triphysa phryne, a species which I always supposed to be essentially a steppe insect. Further up the valley were caught two butterflies of exceptional interest: Erebia edda, which I only knew from East Siberia, and a very fine Œneis nanna.
We left the Tchu valley to cross a range of larch-covered hills. When we got out of the forest on to the open downs at the top, about 5,000 or 5,500 feet, we had a most splendid view of the very remarkable country before us. Fletcher said that it reminded him very much of that part of Tibet north of Lhasa where they were turned back by the Tibetans. We over¬ looked the Kurai steppe, which is a plain eight or nine miles long by five or six wide. The centre is flat and marshy, and covered with forest of larch and willow. On the south is a very high, snowy range of mountains, marked on the old maps as the Cholim range, which have glaciers of small size and are covered with perpetual snow for about 2,000 feet from the summit, which was about 10,000 feet. This range is the real boundary of China and Russia, though the frontier is a good deal to the south. The mountains were said to be uninhabited, and impassable from the Kurai plain, though I have no doubt that horses might be taken over them.
To the north are high mountains, but much more rounded and lower than those to the south, and a pass through them down the Kurai river
