| | | On November 23rd the march goes 12.2 km. S. S. E. The first 3.2 km. took us up to a little pass of 5,103 m., being a rise of 100 m. or as I :32. From the pass to Carp LXIX was g km. with a fall of 104 m., or as I : 86, as the camp had a height of 4,999 m. Camp LXIX was thus only 4 m. below Camp LX VIII. The temperature again was comparatively high or —20.4° in the night, in connection with a very strong wind. The season was extremely windy and stormy, and it usually blew from the S. W. The sky was clear blue, but the air was full of fine dust, making a distant view impossible. On account of the strong wind, the cold was terrible and the march very hard. Leaving the little valley and its ice-sheets, we ride up to the S. E. through a tributary valley with two series of rocky teeth to our left called Kebe, and a moderate range to our right. It leads up to a little pass, 5,103 m. high, after which the ground is undulating, and the road goes up and down along the hills, crossing several dry watercourses and miniature valleys, often with fireplaces either isolated or in groups. In a deeper erosion bed, the fireplaces were particularly numerous and near it was erected a stone cairn. Several such »leur» had been seen previously, indicating the road, and on the pass of 5,103 m. a cairn was also built. The road had now a less worn appearance than hitherto. This may perhaps be due to the configuration of the ground which allows travellers to march anywhere they like. Far to our left we had during the whole day, a plain or large open valley stretching, as the mountain ranges of this region, from north to south, which is exceptional and rather rare in Tibet. For several days, or nearly the whole way to Bog lsang--tsana po, we had very level and open ground with a few exceptions, though our direction was meridional. On the plain there were several broad and shallow erosion furrows appearing as dark or violet belts. Some of them seemed to be a series of temporary pools and swamps now completely dry. To the east, the open valley is bounded by a mountain range of moderate size with two or three protuberances without snow. The whole country is very dry ; water, snow and ice being rare everywhere. Since Gomo-lsaka, we had seen no lakes worth speaking of. The fact that the road goes on the slopes of the hills instead of following the open plain valley, is due to the scarcity of water lower down. In the winter water is rare both on the plain and in the hills. At Camp LXIX there was no water at all, but in a transverse valley in the range farther south, an ice-sheet was seen from where a little provision of ice was brought to camp. From this camp one could see that the country became lower to the south. The whole country in this direction seemed to roll in waves, three different flat ranges or protuberances being seen one above and beyond the other. Still the general direction of the ranges was nearly N.-S. The S. W. storm increased in the afternoon, making the surrounding mountains more and more diffused. The sky was |
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