In these high, cold regions, with their pure, dry air, the sunsets were not particularly beautiful. The sun drops in blinding splendour from the limpid blue sky, and it is only in the east that the transition from day to night is accompanied by any illuminative effects. In that direction the earth assumes a pink tinge, which shades away to a vast distance, the summits of the individual mountains and of the mountain-ranges alone standing out in more strongly-marked, deeper tints. In the zenith the sky is flushed a light rosy red, but on the eastern horizon it is blue, and the blue deepens rapidly; it is night rising in the east, a »reflection» as it were of those parts of the earth's surface in which night already holds sway. The black and blue-and-white tents of the Tibetans stand out distinctly, and we see their owners leading their horses and baggage yaks from one patch of grass to another. In the foreground the hard, yellow grass is sharply etched against the setting sun. This locality was said to be called Ramlung, and the principal chieftain of that region was reported to reside at Ob-genang, some sixteen days' journey towards the west or south-west.
October 14th. In consequence of the exhaustion of the caravan and the slow pace of the hired yaks, we were seldom able to cover more than 20 km. in a day: on this day, for instance, we did only 18.4 km. This brought with it however one advantage; it enabled me to make an accurate and detailed map of this part of Tibet and to take the absolute altitudes of a great number of fixed points; but unfortunately I was not able to make any side-excursions, owing to my having to husband the last remaining strength of the caravan. Our march towards Ladak was therefore very like a retreat, the governing idea of which was sauve qui pent. All the same it was in many ways an instructive journey, and held out many inducements to us to explore the adjacent regions with a better and more enduring caravan.
From Camp CIV we proceeded a short distance north-east in order to get round a shoulder of the mountain that stood in our way and so carne into the latitudinal valley, which we followed for the rest of the day towards the west-northwest. Here again we found that the orographical architecture is not seldom so arranged that the springs of the watercourses are situated on the northern versant of the southern range, while the northern range is pierced by their transverse glens. This new latitudinal valley is essentially narrow, and the adjacent mountain-ranges are not particularly high; they are for the most part rounded in outline. though occasionally they break into stretches of wild crags and rugged spurs. The grass was thin and poor, and water very scarce: with one or two exceptions all the watercourses were dry. The pass on the first threshold of the latitudinal valley had an altitude of 4,813 m.; thus it was lower than our last camp. East of this stretches a trough-shaped gathering-basin, which is so far unusual and unlike others we had seen in that its principal stream breaks through not only the northern, but also the southern, range. Originating in the district immediately west of Camp CIV, it cleaves the southern range, runs close to and east of the last-named threshold-pass, follows for a short distance the latitudinal valley, and then, in order to avoid a small butte that rises in the middle of the valley, it swings away towards the north, and breaks through the northern range by a narrow glen. Through the
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