IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899-1902 : vol.4 |
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Citation Information
FROM THE LAKOR-TSO TO THE BONDSCHING-TSO.
185
though these regions are, they are nevertheless for administrative purposes kept separate from one another. Upon reaching the frontiers of each new province or administrative region, we were always provided with a fresh escort and with fresh yaks. The district in which we just then were is called Sagetsang, and its inhabitants belong to the Senkor tribe.
On the 25th October, in so far as the above-mentioned lake Sponjen Baptsetso is really identical with our Bondsching-babtsa-tso, or as it is also called Bondschingtso, we appeared to be travelling in Littledale's footsteps. It was a glorious morning, and quite still, so that I was able to photograph without running the risk of having my camera blown over every minute. The absolutely pure atmosphere, making objects visible to an immense distance, is per se most favourable for photographing, as will be evident from some of the accompanying plates. But at 2 p.m. the western »trade» wind again set in with full force; but, as usual, there was not the smallest speck of cloud, not even the tiniest cirrus, visible.
We still continued to travel in the same direction as before, almost due northwest. Leaving on our right the little frozen lake of Oman-tso, we ascended the gently inclined latitudinal valley, the two mountain-ranges of which approach close together, and all day presented the same rocky crests, vertical precipices down to the upper margin of the gravelly talus, and the same detached and conspicuous towers, for all the world like petrified, and in part ruined, castles of chivalry. There were no side-glens worth speaking about, only crevices and almost vertical watercourses. The only real transverse glen that we saw comes from the west-south-west, and it appeared to bring down with it the channel which becomes the main watercourse of the basin, flowing down the middle of the valley to the Omantso. This basin is bordered on the west by an extremely flat threshold running athwart it and only a few meters above the level of the Oman-tso. The surface falls gently towards the north-west, and the valley grows a little broader. Just past the pass two side-glens open out on the right, disclosing a view to the north and north-east, the principal features being several parallel crests. Sometimes these glimpses up the side-glens are especially picturesque and attractive — magnificent precipices with projecting terraces, on which the lights and shadows play in the transparent atmosphere with wonderful effect, and show up the outlines of the mountains in pregnant relief.
From the mountains on both sides of the expansion north-west of the pass there issue watercourses, which soon unite into one, and this then winds farther towards the north-west, keeping approximately to the middle of the valley, until finally it terminates in a flat depression, a tolerably extensive area of clayey alluvium, as level as a floor, but frequently cracked into thin cakes of clay, polygonal in shape and slightly concave. Here then sometimes no small body of water will gather, giving rise to a very shallow and transitory lake. On the other hand the main stream of the valley bears no traces of carrying a more copious flood, although it is, I dare say, occasionally visited by such. Upon the same depression debouch also a number of tiny secondary glens from each side, and in the continuation of the latitudinal valley there exists also a similar main watercourse, which rises on the pass that bounds the depression on the west. The level clay expanse
He d i n, 7'ourney in Central Asia. IV. 24
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