Five platform mountain is a ring of mountains, long and sloping, bare, that rise up over the northern Chinese lands, which spread away dry and dusty as plains below and beyond. The mountains here form a kind of wide ring above the earth, you can imagine, with gentle ridges that connect five natural platforms: the tallest looms up in the north at about 3000 m; ride that ridge east and south a few miles and it rises again to another flat space at about 2700 m. From here head south down the slopes, you'll come to a central area, a lowland valley that rests amidst these ridges and soft, treeless slopes. From there go south and another mountain rises to a sort of platform, but this one is far off, maybe 10 or 12 miles from
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