THE ADDAN-TSO. COMMENTS ON THIS LACUSTRINE GROUP - TIIE DAGTSE-TSO. I03
this, to the south, runs another range, lower and parallel with the first range. In the middle of the valley there are occasional stretches of minor hills. The mountains on the south, that is to say the westward continuation of the range last crossed over, on the northern shore of the Addan-tso, is considerably lower than the opposite range on the north of the valley, but on the other hand its outlines are wild and fantastic : there was not a single point where it would have been possible to cross the range with camels. Towards the north-west and west-north-west the country is very flat, the only diversities being some low hills. And the same thing is true of the country to the west, that is in the direction in which our latitudinal valley was running. I was told that this southern range is called Kondo. After we had passed a spring called Biji, we travelled for a while towards the south-west, keeping faithfully to the foot of the southern mountains, sometimes crossing over flat spurs that jut out from it, as also shallow dry gullies. On the right we passed a small free-standing butte.
During this day's march we counted no less than 32 black tents belonging to the nomads, all of them standing on the slopes of the southern mountains, and here too, although the grass was but poor, large flocks were grazing. My Lama, who visited several of the tents, told me that they contained 2, and at the most 8, persons each. If we knew the number of latitudinal valleys in this inhabited part of Tibet, and knew the grazing capability of each valley, we should be able to make a provisional calculation as to the numbers of the population. It must however be remembered that the population increases as you proceed south from the country through which we were then travelling, but towards the north it thins away and soon ceases; indeed it is probable that north of our latitudinal valley there was but a small number of tents, and in some places none at all. Our knowledge of the general geography of Tibet is however all too scanty to admit of any reliable conclusions being arrived at on this topic. The range of Kondo may in a certain sense be regarded as a geographical boundary. South of it the relief of the country is very capricious and irregular, a chaos of mountain-ranges, most of them stretching east and west, and the latitudinal valleys between them are largely occupied with lakes; and so it continues as far as the great snowy range, which separates this lacustrine region from a similar region farther to the south, in which lie the lakes Dangra-jum-tso, Nganzi-tso, Daru-tso, Kyaring-tso, Mokien-tso, and several others, all known since Nain Singh's journey. North of the Kondo range the highlands are more plateau-like, although even there big ranges run from east to west. In a later chapter I propose to bring together for comparison a number of profiles, based upon our existing knowledge of Tibet.
The only transverse glens that bear names appear to be those which possess springs in their entrance; one of these, known as Urumi, contained springs, marshes, grazing, and four tents. Here began a little foot-hill range, fairly well defined; this we passed at some distance. Our camp that evening, in the district of Schalung or Dagdi, was also situated close to some marshes formed by springs and near them were several open freshwater pools. Not far away ends the little range from which a number of gullies and watercourses descend towards the north, all difficult to cross over and tiring to both man and beast: they were 3 to 4 m. deep and were all crossed at right angles.
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