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14   WILFORD's COMMENTS ON THE LAKES AND RIVERS OF SOUTH-WESTERN TIBET.

the report of natives. i During the rains the lake is said to overflow, and several streams rush down from the hills; but they soon dry up, even the sacred stream itself not excepted.»

PURANGIR was a pilgrim from Hindustan and a Gosein or a Brahmin religious, who had been used several times by WARREN HASTINGS as an interpreter and spy in Bhutan and Tibet.' He had accompanied the first deputation from Tibet to Bengal, in 1773.3 He had accompanied BOGLE in 1774-75 and TURNER in 1783. Between those two missions he had travelled with the famous Tashi Lama to Peking in 1779, a journey of which he has given a description.4 He seems to have been a very reliable and trustworthy man. Therefore, the description he gives of the Manasarovar is probably by far more conscientious and reliable than any other narrative of a pilgrim from Hindustan. I am not aware of the date of his journey, but as he was very much occupied in political work after 1773, it seems probable that his journey to the Manasarovar took place some time before that date.

Purangir was told that the lake used to overflow during the rains, that is to say, that the channel carried water in the rainy season; but in the dry season it seemed to be dry. There is a yearly period of rise and fall in the level of the lake, independent of the longer one during which the channel is dry even in the wet season.

From his description it seems as if Purangir believed the Ganges was rising from near the Kailas, entering the Manasarovar and then issuing from the lake. Thus he regarded the lake as an intermediate stage in the course of the river below its source. We have, as usual, only to substitute Satlej for Ganges to get the right hydrographical situation.

Wilford continues: 5

»According to Pura'n-gir, and other pilgrims from India, this extensive plain is surrounded on all sides by peaks, or conical hills, but very irregular: toward the North they rise gradually, and a little beyond the sugar-loaf hill of Khyem-lung begins the base of Cantaisch. Toward the East the range of peaks is very low, forming only a serrated crest. To the South this crest is much higher than toward the other cardinal points: but, to the North, the mountains beyond the crest are very high. The Southern crest is very near the banks of the lake. The lake itself forms an irregular oval, approaching to a circle, but the two inlets or smaller lakes to the north are said not to exist, for Pura'n-gir's route was to the north of the lake, and close to its shore, and he did not see them. Pilgrims are five days in going round the lake, and the place of worship, or Gombah, is to the south. It consists of a few huts, with irregular steps down the banks of the lake. The Ganges issues from it, and during the dry season its stream is hardly five or six inches deep. It does not go through the lake called Lanken in the maps; it flows to the south-east of it, at the distance of two or three coss. This lake is

I Compare above Vol. I, p. 266.

2 KÖPPEN, op. cit. p. 218.

3 TURNER: An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet, London i800, p. VI.

4 TURNER, Op. Cit. p. 457.

5 L. C. p. 328.