44 FROM CENTRAL TIBET TO LADAK.
isthmus there were two small pools, and from our line of march we beheld in the Selling-tso a flat, white-gleaming island, situated close to the shore; however, as we saw only one-half of it, it may possibly be a peninsula. The range which borders the isthmus on the south is likewise broken by a »gateway», with a little threshold in it, at an altitude of 4695 m., and through this natural gateway we had to the south a fairly open and extensive view — a latitudinal valley, the bordering mountains of which were at a considerable distance to the south as well as not particularly high. We passed on our right the two peaks L2 and M2, which are situated
on a blunted peninsula that juts out into the Naktsong-tso. The range with the »gateway» in it bears a very close resemblance to that beside the Jagju-rapga. Its southern face is precipitous. We now travelled south-south-east, without seeing a glimpse of either lake, though on the north side of the range these two sheets of water are by a long way the most conspicuous features in the landscape. Camp LXXIX was pitched on the west side of a fairly extensive marshy region, where the grazing was good; its altitude was 4674 m. At this point I was stopped by the Tibetan cavalry and prevented from advancing farther south; and it was from this point therefore that I made my real start for the west — for Ladak.
On 14th September I set off on a three day's boating excursion on the southern and western parts of the Naktsong-tso, and it is to this that I owe the good general idea I obtained of the shape and bathymetrical relations of the lake. It
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