38 THROUGH THE REGION OF AKSAI-CHIN.
red or pink, it is rocky and steep, and it seems to continue a long way east. Chiefly on the north side of its peaks, there is a good deal of snow. On this side of the range there are lower hills in red and green colours. The red ones seem to be of the same kind as, and the continuation of, the hills south of Camp VIII. Towards the north one may distinguish between three different gradations in the orographical arrangement: small disconnected hills of brownish colour; greater uninterrupted ranges of rounded forms and without snow ; and finally a principal range with eternal snow.
The plain assumes a very curious character. To the eye it is as level as a frozen sea, hard and comfortable for marching, partly consisting of fine gravel in a thin layer of dust, and partly of sand. There are no erosion furrows and no kind of watercourses. It would be impossible to tell whether this plain were absolutely horizontal or whether it sloped in some one direction. More likely it rises extremely slowly to the east in spite of the absolute heights given above, which are liable to error on account of the ever changing atmospheric pressure. Finally we turn E. N. E. crossing a brook which belongs to the category of dying old watercourses. For in its bed the water seemed to be quite immovable, and only at a narrow place one could see that a very slow current was directed to the west. The water was slightly brackish, though drinkable.
Camp X is situated between two arms of this brook which probably comes to an end somewhere in the great clay bed we had seen to the north nearly the whole day. On account of the levelness of the floor of the latitudinal valley the hydrographical relation between the Lake of Aksai-chin and this brook is not quite easy to make out. The most probable would be that Camp X in reality is situated at a few meters above the lake and that the brook once was an affluent of it. Dry yapkak roots were abundant as well as grass. No signs of human visits. Only the day before we had seen an old fireplace consisting of three stones arranged as a triangle for boiling water in a pot. Of wild animals only kyangs and ravens were seen. The weather had changed to the worse ; S. W. and W. S. W. wind with some hail showers, and the heaven covered by clouds. The beautiful blue colour of the lake had, therefore, disappeared, and it now had a grey, dull colour.
The Pan. 2 5A and 2 58, Tab. 5, taken from Camp X, goes around the whole horizon and has a certain resemblance to the one from Camp IX, at least from a general morphological point of view. It is again the great latitudinal valley which
is the dominating feature of the landscape with moderate mountains both to the north and the south. The western opening of the latitudinal valley is now seen to the N. 86° W.—N. 80° W. as a horizontal line without any mountains in the back-ground. The eastern opening is somewhat narrower than it was from
Camp IX.
IIIFカラー高解像度
