east; but as we faithfully followed the lake-shore, our course was painfully zigzagging. Thus we had on the south the Naktsong-tso and on the north the insignificant, and not perfectly regular, mountain-range which stands on the isthmus between the two lakes. This range sends out various spurs towards the south, while close to the shore there are several more or less free-standing buttes. On the northern shore two peninsulas are especially conspicuous; the one to the east is the more pronounced, and the mountains that stand upon it compelled us for a short distance to travel even south-west; as its continuation to the south-west it has a little hilly rocky island. At the head of the bay between the two peninsulas there were a couple of lagoons, with good grazing round them. South of the eastern peninsula,
and tolerably near to the shore, are three or four islands, consisting of soft materials, though they reach a considerable height above the lake, in shape resembling loaves of bread or dolphins' backs. They were clothed with thick green grass; in summer it is secure from the sheep of the nomads. On the other side of the last island the lake appeared to terminate in a very extensive, but beautifully rounded, bay, bounded on the south by a mountain-spur that projects westwards and has as its highest summits the peaks which I have called Lz and M2. The shore round the bay was hard and excellent for marching on, as it consisted of consolidated gravel a centimeter in diameter, round, polished, and light in colour. At the distance of one or two score meters from the water's edge is an especially beautiful and regularly formed shore-rampart, which would seem to owe its existence to the beat of the waves and the grinding of the ice. Within this rampart we found, first, a large triangular pool, squeezed into the mouth of the glen that opens out between two projecting buttresses; then a couple of long, narrow lagoons, to which the rampart
IIIF Color HighRes
