136 MY FIRST JOURNEY IN NORTH-EASTERN TIBET.
trary, stood out boldly and distinctly, especially so long as the ridge behind it was strongly illumined by the sun. It was my intention to take a series of soundings diagonally across the lake; but in this I was disappointed. Nevertheless it may pretty safely be taken, that this lake, like its neighbour to the east, is deepest towards the north, where the mountains plunge steeply down into its water; though probably even there the depth does not exceed 15 to 20 m., if we may judge by the colour of the water. All along the southern shore the water was thick and muddy, and of a reddish brown colour, though this did, it is true, shade away towards the north. All the same there was no room here for the same beautiful blue-green limpidity that we observed in the eastern lake. This discoloration of the water is of course caused partly by the muddy brooks which enter the lake, especially from the south, partly, and probably to the greatest extent, by the stormy weather of the last few days; for this lake, being, like most of those in Tibet, drawn out in the path of the prevailing winds, has its surface broken into waves that reach down to the bottom, at all events over by far the greatest part of its area.
The soundings I took run from east to west: — 0.71, o.76, I.25, 1.28, 1.90, 2.14, 2.07, 2.18, 2.11, 2.5o, 2.13, 2.26, 2.67, 2.85, 2.79, 2.92, 2.92, 2.85, 2.78, and 2.12 quite close to the eastern shore of the peninsula, from one of the heights on which we caught our first glimpse of the lake. Thus in general the depth increases towards the west, though the reason of this is that we proceeded slowly northwards from the southern and shallower part of the lake. Here too the shore of the peninsula was jagged and broken with lagoons and ramparts.
The lake then penetrates between a long, narrow peninsula jutting out towards the south-west and another peninsula projecting from the west, and so continues to the narrow sound which we crossed over on our journey out. West of these two
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