APPROACHING A NEW LAKE. 85
plain. One of them was considerable and was, at the southern side of its mouth, bounded by a red ridge. The rock was fine-grained greenish chlorit-glaucophanalbite schist. Beyond this place we continued south amongst red, soft, sandy hills covered with grass. On the right side of a deep-cut valley, Camp LI was pitched amongst flat hills. The region was now visited by wild yaks. A little panorama, 61, Tab. Da, was drawn from N. E. to S. E. as the rest was hidden by hills in the immediate vicinity. The grass was good on the soft, sandy ground ; fuel is plentiful, and running water was to be had from the last-mentioned valley. At three points near the lake, fireplaces were found, which my men supposed to be only two months old, as a part of the ashes was still left. A yak that was killed here had two Tibetan bullets in its body. Horns of tame Tibetan sheep were seen at one place. We were moving in a region which, at a less cold season, is visited by native hunters. In the night of November 2d we had a temperature of —29° at this camp, where we remained four days for a rest.
To Camp LII we had, November 3d, 18.5 km. to the S. E. along the western margin of the basin. Camp LII had a height of 5,019 m., 21 m. below Camp LI. On the way between the two, we once crossed a tributary valley of 4,986 m. height, indicating that the lake must be some meters below that altitude, and a little protuberance with a height of 5,082 m. We were in a season of continual S. W. and W. S. W. wind, or rather storm, which more than anything else contributed to kill our animals and to weaken all the men, even the hardy Ladakis. Every morning I got new proofs of the transporting power of this wind, for my bed and everything inside my tent was covered with a layer of yellow dust that partly enters through the meshes of the tent-cloth itself. Until noon the sky was absolutely clear and blue in the zenith, but along the ground impenetrable clouds of dust and sand were sweeping, giving everything a grey or yellow appearance and hiding the view. In the afternoon the sky became covered with dark, compact clouds. The caravan, both animals and men, has a ghastly appearance, as they are perfectly covered with dust.
On undulating, soft ground covered with grass, we follow the base of the hills and cross an erosion furrow from the south. From there the ground is slowly rising to a little threshold between the hills we have to our right, and a little detached ridge. On its other side we again go down, crossing several small watercourses, all dry and without ice. We are approaching the lake which seems to be oblong from N. W. to S. E. At its northern shore there was a belt of open water. Some of my men who had been there, insisted that the water was fresh, which would indeed be surprising. The fact that the lake was partly open seemed to indicate salinity, though of course the constant S. W. wind also may delay the freezing of even a fresh-water lake.
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