446 A NEW JOURNEY SOUTHWARDS.
over in this neighbourhood. And yet this particular point was lower than usual for that part of Tibet, and several days elapsed before we reached a place that was situated at the same relatively low altitude. As a general rule, even at our camping-sites, which we almost always selected in the bottoms of the valleys, we were more
than 5000 m. above the level of the sea.
A curious change took place in the direction of the wind that afternoon. Earlier in the day we had the usual westerly wind (south-west and west-south-west), but at sunset it fell a dead calm. This did not however last long, for at 8 o'clock a furious tempest burst upon us from the north-north-east, the wind blowing with a velocity of 16V2 m. in the second. Vast clouds of dust were whirled along just above the ground, though the sky above-head was perfectly clear, and the moon and stars glittered with indescribable brilliancy, as they usually do at night in Tibet. I may however say that, as a rule, the nights were calm, while the days were nearly always blowy, not to say tempestuous. This north-north-east tempest subsided in the early hours of the morning, and when the next day dawned the weather was glorious. But we had not been long started when the regular trade-wind, as I like to call it, set in again. Then too it came from a more southerly direction, sometimes indeed from the south-south-west.
Without any excessive degree of exertion we succeeded on the 3oth June in crossing over the nearest heights. After having forded the river, which comes from
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