90 THE FIRST TIBETAN HUNTERS.
of pebbles and shingle and detritus material, but soon afterwards opens out into the plain. The floor of the valley was red from the sandstone gravel and white from salt crystallisations. In the upper reaches of this valley there were numerous yaks and antelopes. Of the latter, herds were also seen on the plain north of the lake. Having climbed up again on the southern side of the valley, we camped at the foot of a red mountain, where again a square wall was seen with a fireplace protected with a roof of stones. In front of us to the south was seen a cairn , lamga leur as the Ladakis say, showing where the road passes. Pan. 62, Tab. 1o, shows the view from this camp. The rest of the horizon was hidden by the hills behind us.
On November 711i we continued the march around the eastern side of the great, red sandstone group for 11.3 km., generally to the S. S. W. In the course of this march the absolute height remains about the same, Camp L V being at 5,01 I m. and Camp L VI at 5,016 m. The minima of the nights were some degrees higher than before, e. g. the night to the 7th of November — 19.4°, and the S. W. wind was not quite so strong.
From the camp our road goes steeply up to a hill from which the lake is again visible and proves to be small and round. Then we march up and down on very uncomfortable ground consisting of nothing but sharp-edged gravel forming mighty screes down to the western shore of the lake. No vegetation gets time to grow up in the gravel which constantly increases after every new fall and sliding of the destroyed rocks from above. The rocks rise in steep, sometimes perpendicular walls immediately to the right of our road, and are pierced by a series of deep-cut, narrow, wild gorges. From these issue narrow beds with their floors full of gravel and blocks. We have, therefore, to cross a series of screes with erosion valleys between. The rocks here consist of grey schistose clastophyric quartzite, and white quartz included in greyish green schist. Through the opening of one particularly large valley, considerable mountain cupolas were seen to the west, probably the highest part of the group. From this valley a brook went to the lake, among extensive ice-sheets. We are at an average height of about 5o m. above Laslzung-Iso, as we later on were told was the name of this lake, the western shore of which we slowly approached. Hares were numerous. On the nearly perpendicular cliffs above us two flocks of Ovis ammon of 9 and 5 individuals resp. were seen.
Farther on we had to cross an erosion furrow easily I oo m. broad and filled with boulders, sharp-edged blocks and gravel without any kind of cement of finer material between. Hills and slopes of black gravel fall down to the very shore of the lake. When we are nearest the lake there is a semi-circular stone wall with its convexity to the south. At Camp L V a similar construction was convex to the north, which seems to indicate that the mountain group acts as a wind-parting. The lake proved to be salt, though it was completely frozen over. Its colour was white
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