BOATING EXCURSIONS ON THE TSCHARGUT-TSO — THE JAGJU-RAPGA. 85
fairly steeply on the north, though nothing like so steeply as on the south side; at their foot lies a scree of gravel and smaller fragments of stone, with a little grass springing up amongst them in places. I had intended to continue the trip across the southern parts of the lake ; but my intention was frustrated by a veritable hurricane that came from the west. Its onset was indeed a sublime spectacle. Far away in the west the sky was hung with heavy blue-black clouds, which came driving in swift career across the lake, and in a very short space of time whipped up its surface into foam-tipped waves. Thus I had direct ocular demonstration
of the fact, that the waves on the Tibetan lakes can run pretty high; it is fair to suppose therefore that they do exert an appreciable effect upon the shores. And this is especially true of a lake like the Tschargut-tso, stretching as it does east and west in one of the characteristic Tibetan latitudinal valleys, so that it is in a high degree exposed to the wind, which sweeps across it unchecked as though pouring through a gigantic natural funnel. And in view of certain interesting phenomena which I subsequently observed in the lakes situated farther west, I will here call attention to the fact, which is indeed quite natural, that it is the eastern shores of these lakes which are most exposed to the beat of the waves, and it is on them that the strand-ramparts are formed. We shall find as we proceed, that it is precisely those more exposed shores that possess the best developed and best preserved
strand-ramparts.
Fig. 45. ON THE EASTERN SHORE OF TSCHARGUT-TSO, LOOKING EAST. TIBETAN SOLDIERS.
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