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
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THE OMAN-TSO, THE DADAP-TSO, AND TIIE PERUTSE-TSO.
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The Perutse-tso is on the whole circular in shape, and thus belongs to the same round shallow lacustrine type as the Selling-tso and the Dadap-tso; indeed scarce any of the encircling mountains appeared to approach anywhere close to its
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shores. That the lake is very shallow was quite evident from the belt of flat mud which projected just a shade above the water in the middle; possibly it is only just at that season of the year that it becomes exposed.
We rode down from the threshold-pass towards the south-west, leaving behind us a rugged, rocky shoulder of the southern range. The slope, which is in some places crossed by big watercourses, has a very gentle fall, and is overgrown with balghun bushes reaching I I, 2 m. in height and possessing magnificent dry roots, thicker than a man's arm. Just as the tamarisks do in the basin of the Tarim, so here with these bushes: each grows on the top of a mound i m. high. This was the first point on the way to Ladak where we found bushes; balghun bushes we had not seen since we left Temirlik, but we had by this descended so far, to about 4500 m., that those bushes were able to thrive again. It turned out however that in this regard the Perutse-tso neighbourhood is only a pleasant oasis; for until we drew near to the region of the Panggong-tso bush vegetation still continued to be a rarity, but at the latter lake nature changes in more than one respect.
We continued towards the south-west until we reached the shore, which we then followed closely for some distance. The surface was very hard, consisting of coarse, consolidated sand, furrowed by watercourses and dry torrents, issuing out of the mountains to the south. These, for as far as they were visible to us, are of moderate elevation and send out spurs down to the shore of the lake. It was somewhere amongst these low mountains that Littledale travelled. As a rule each watercourse pursues its own independent path to the lake, that is to say, it does not unite with any of its neighbours before entering it, and they are also, as a rule, about one meter deep. Alongside the lake where we then were, that is on our left, we had a couple of old strand-terraces, low, but defined with especial sharpness. But the phenomenon was only noticeable where the hills advanced quite close to the southern shore of the lake ; otherwise that shore is so flat and level, and has such a gentle slope, that terraces could not be formed. The flat ground between the water's edge and the lowest terrace was still moist, and had it not been frozen, it would assuredly not have borne. Here were numbers of tiny rivulets, all of them entering the lake. Close along that shore the water was therefore perfectly fresh; though farther out it would of course be salt, unless its position and habitus spoke altogether falsely. So far as we could see from our route, the lake was entirely lacking in both animal and vegetable life. In colour its waters were a light dirty green; but the belt of sediment in the middle, which I have already mentioned, glinted white, being like a big island, and its south-eastern corner approached quite close to the shore on which we were travelling. Seen from a distance, this flat patch of sediment looked like an ice-field. In places luxuriant grass was growing on the shore on our side.
On the left we passed a rocky promontory, while on the right the marshy, swelling shore-line of the lake trended away to the north. Our strip of shore consequently continued to broaden out, being bordered on the south by a single ter-
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