and every probability points also to the rock-drawings having had the same origin, especially as they have been produced in exactly the same way by means of a hammer and an iron chisel. The slabs bearing the prayer formule are precisely like those which I found in the southern border-range of Tsajdam in 1896, especially those in the glen of Ike-tsohan-gol. It is quite clear that neither pictures nor inscribed stones can have been executed by people of a settled race, for even shepherds would be unable to maintain themselves in that almost barren tract. Either they were simply hunters who made the lower Toghri-saj the scene of their operations or they were pilgrims to Lhasa who left here an example of their art. Probably it was the former who in this way perpetuated their hunting exploits and the latter who set up the obo.
October 12th. At Camp LXXI we once more came into contact with human beings, by meeting a couple of hunters from Tschertschen, who had come up to the mountains to shoot yaks and kulans, for the sake of their skins, which they sell to the Andischan merchants. The nearest route from that spot to Tschertschen passed, they told me, through the following places — Aghatscha-tschat, Kaschätlik, Korumlik, Ghal-saj, Unkurluk, Turdumet-alik, Kosuk-kakti (to which point it is said to be a heavy day's march), Dimen-alik, Basch-malghun, Tokus-davan, Munar-bulak, Kätschik (where the Tschertschen-darja is crossed), and finally Tschertschen, which can be reached in six days. The entire route runs through the western prolongation
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