the Great Wall.

(14) Who this envoy was, and where he was going, we do not know. The
text will not admit of any other translation.

(15) Le Hao was a native of Lung-se, a man of learning, able and
kindly in his government. He was appointed governor or prefect of
T'un-hwang by the king of "the northern Leang," in 400; and there he
sustained himself, becoming by and by "duke of western Leang," till he
died in 417.

(16) "The river of sand;" the great desert of Kobi or Gobi; having
various other names. It was a great task which the pilgrims had now
before them,--to cross this desert. The name of "river" in the Chinese
misleads the reader, and he thinks of crossing it as of crossing
a stream; but they had to traverse it from east to west. In his
"Vocabulary of Proper Names," p. 23, Dr. Porter Smith says:--"It
extends from the eastern frontier of Mongolia, south-westward to the
further frontier of Turkestan, to within six miles of Ilchi, the
chief town of Khoten. It thus comprises some twenty-three degrees
of longitude in length, and from three to ten degrees of latitude
in breadth, being about 2,100 miles in its greatest length. In some
places it is arable. Some idea may be formed of the terror with
which this 'Sea of Sand,' with its vast billows of shifting sands, is
regarded, from the legend that in one of the storms 360 cities were
all buried within the space of twenty-four hours." So also Gilmour's
"Among the Mongols," chap. 5.