It had snowed again and the whole country was white. The snow lay, as a rule, only a few centimeters deep, but in ravines and furrows, half a meter and more. Very likely this snowfall only touched the highest parts of this high protuberance of western Chang-fang; and probably no precipitation fell around Sheinen-tso and other comparatively lower regions. In the morning half the sky was clear, and half covered with light white clouds. At 9 o'clock a. m. the whole sky was overclouded and to the south and S. W., very dark and compact clouds appeared. To the east and E. S. E. as well, the weather looked very menacing and a sort of snow-fog seemed to surround the mountains in the vicinity of the next pass in front of. us. In the course of the day, however, no snow fell and there was nearly no- wind.
After crossing the ice-sheet at Camp CCCXXVII, we ascend the flat slopes of the hills along the southern side of the valley where the rise becomes more and more sensible to our tired animals. There is some grass on these hills. To our left we have the bed of the main watercourse of the valley with its ice-sheet and to the north of it a considerable range with eternal snow and even a few quite rudimentary glaciers. The ground was rotten from rabbits' holes. The tracks of the small rodents were seen everywhere in the fresh snow. Pantlzolo's antelopes were very numerous in flocks on the floor of the latitudinal valley, and amongst them a few individuals of the small Gazella antelopes were grazing. As it proved afterwards, it would have been better for us to follow the latitudinal valley eastwards instead of climbing to the little threshold of 5,317 m., a direction which we thought should bring us more quickly to the definite pass. From the little threshold we behold to the east and S. E. , an open arena plain , to which we had to descend again and cross before entering the pass valley. From here it was, however, impossible to tell in which direction the pass was situated. We still did not know how far this high part of the Chang-lang was stretching, nor whether the Snowy Range of Bower and Rawling was in connection with it. The general stretching of the ranges in this part of Tibet was N. W.—S. E. and W. N. W.—E. S. E., as could be expected, but obviously there existed also meridional ranges and ramifications. The whole morphology of the latitudinal valley we had now been following so many days, proved, on the other hand, that the pass in front of us was a water-parting threshold in the valley itself, of the same kind as those of which we had crossed so many in the late autumn of 1906.
So far, we had had no reason to complain of the grazing grounds in the valley and our last 14 caravan animals, the survivers of 40, had taken the five last days without losses. Around Camp CCCXXVIII, however, the grass was very poor on account of the 5,317 m. height. Pan. 413, Tab. 75, shows the high mountains . to the north, east and S. E., and to the E. S. E. the direction of the pass.
IIIFカラー高解像度
