meters higher than Camp XCI. On the other side of it we again went gently down, until we at length struck the Bogtsang-tsangpo, and then we once more marched up alongside it. This day too was, like those that preceded it, a warm summer day; indeed in the afternoon we even found the sun irksome as it shone in our faces, causing our skin to dry up, crack, and peel off in large flakes.
On the little pass my aneroids registered 4639 m.; but, despite the slightness of the relative altitude, we enjoyed from it a pretty extensive view. To the west-north-west we saw, through a broad, level gap, the latitudinal valley in which Littledale travelled, and which my Tibetan escort repeatedly endeavoured to induce me to follow, probably because they looked upon that road as finally and completely abandoned, as well as in so far of less consequence, owing to the fact that it is in general very difficult to find a road over the great mountain-range on the south down into Tibet proper, or as my escort phrased it, into the »Land of the Holy Books». The latitudinal valley, that is to say the actual valley of the Bogtsangtsangpo, appeared to stretch as far as ever we could see towards the west-southwest.
As we marched down from the pass, we had at first on our right some low and insignificant hills, and on our left broken country, through which all the watercourses make their way down to the Bogtsang-tsangpo. Upon coming to a freshwater pool, fed by springs, we found large flocks of sheep grazing; the grass was in patches exceptionally good.
After passing on our left a small mountain knob, rising above the otherwise soft ground, we once more caught sight of the Bogtsang-tsangpo, winding with short, sharp bends immediately south of our line of march. At first it looked so
Fig. 59. THE BOGTSANG-TSANGPO.
IIIF Color HighRes
