some of the summits of the mountains at this season, although none of them attain the level of perpetual snow.
On September 26th we arrived at the town of Din-yuan-ing, and for the first time during the expedition received a hospitable welcome from its prince, by whose order three officials came to meet us, and led us to a house previously prepared for our use. I should mention, however, that while we were still a whole day's march from the town, three other officials met us, sent by the prince to know who we were. One of their first questions was, 'Were we missionaries?' and only after receiving an answer in the negative would they shake hands with us. They said that if we had been missionaries the prince would not have allowed us to enter the town. Indeed, one of the chief elements of our success was the resolution we formed not to trouble anyone with our religious opinions.
The town of Din-yuan-ing, as we have stated, is the place of residence of the ruling prince of Ala-shan. It is 10 miles from the central part of the Ala-shan mountains, and 53 miles to the north-west of the large Chinese town of Ning-hia-fu,[1] in the pro-
- ↑ The Mongols call this town Irgai. [This is an interesting fact, and shows (what I have questioned in 'Marco Polo,' 2nd ed., i. 273), that Klaproth was right in deducing from a statement of Rashiduddin, in his Persian History of the Mongols, that Irghai was identical with Ning-hia-fu, the capital of the king whose wife Chinghiz appropriated (supra, p. 203). There remains some difficulty in identifying topographically Ninghia with either the Egrigaya of Marco Polo (Book I. ch. lviii.), or his Ergui-ul (ch. lvii.), though we can hardly doubt that the name Irghai lies hid in one or other of these. And there seems little doubt that in the principality of Ala-shan we have substantially
