same direction as Wellby and Malcolm and then turned to the S. E. or south, we would probably also have come across both hunters and nomads. The annual wanderings between Gertse and Lashung, Gomo and other places on our route are not to be regarded as something extraordinary, for quite similar wanderings are, no doubt, undertaken in other parts of Chang tang. Yet we know very little of them. We really only know a few particular cases which could with certainty be marked on maps. How very interesting it would be to be able to mark all the routes of the wandering nomads on a large-scale map ! Only in the future such a map can be drawn. The same may be said of the gold-diggers. But probably their wanderings are very regular. The principal thing for them is to reach their gold mines as quickly as possible. They are less dependent on grazing grounds than the nomads, as they usually have only a few ponies with them, and the Tibetan ponies are, in case of need, nourished with flesh. But so long as we are unable to tell where all the different gold-mines are situated, and which of them are abandoned and which still in use, and from where the professional gold-miners come, we cannot think of a general map showing their yearly wanderings. We were now and would still for a rather long time, or to the southern parts of Translzimalaya, travel through parts of Tibet where there is no permanent population, and where the human beings met with were like birds of passage. Still the problem of their wanderings is a most fascinating one, and a map of their annual migrations would give a very clear idea of their conditions of life as well as of the natural capacity of the country.
The march of November 25th is interesting in so far as it takes us, in a distance of 12.3 km. to the S. S. E., from a height of 4,904 to 4,706 m. or a fall of 198 m., being the same as 1 : 62. During the last four days the absolute altitude had thus constantly diminished from 5,167 to 5,103, 4,999, 4,904 and finally 4,706, showing that we had reached an unusually low depression.
The S. W. storm ceased and the temperature again sank : last night to —26.8°. I have said before that the hard winter storms were more trying for the animals than anything else. In the night before and the morning of November 2 5th, 4 mules died, and only 8 were left. The last storm had been too hard for them. The ponies of Sanskar and Laclak proved, in the long run, to stand the atrocities of the climate better than the mules. It would be of a certain physiological interest to mark out on a map the places where ponies and mules died, and to enter the date, the absolute altitude, the temperature and the strength of the wind. No doubt such a map would show the relation between the capacity of resistance of the animals and the climatic elements. As a rule the effects of the bad influences, as for instance, lack of grass and water, will be delayed, so that occasionally some animals may die at a comparatively low place with good grass and water and no wind, if they, during the preceding days have had to endure cold, storms and starvation.
IIIFカラー高解像度
