CHAPTER XXII.
THE REGION WEST OF SHA-KANGSHAM.
Our last three camps had been situated on the shore plain of Tongka-tso. March I8th, we left it and began to ascend south-westwards towards the pass of the first latitudinal range bordering the valley of Tongka-tso on the south. The distance accomplished was only 7.8 km., but on this stretch we ascended from 4,505 m. to 4,773 m., or 268 m., being a rate of 1:29. The temperature of the night was low or —26.7'; in the morning, the weather was good and clear and the S. W. wind in the course of the day, not strong.
Just S. E. of the camp, we had to cross a little threshold in the red hills of soft material, beyond which we turned S. W. up through the valley of the pass. At the left side of the latter, there was a tent, and higher up some 15 yaks were grazing. The nomads complained that the severe winter had killed many of their sheep, A second tent with a large sheepfold of stone, was passed. We made our Camp CCCLVII in the valley. Here the living rock was green quartzite. Pan. 436, Tab. 8o, embraces only the part of the horizon where the view was free. The high snow-mountain to the S. 48° E., proved to be Sha-kangsham, the mighty massif I had passed in 1901, and which, after a few days, would become better visible.
On March 19t1î, we made 8.2 km. in a zigzag route to the south, rising I i 7 m. or to the 4,890 m. of Camp CCCLVIII. Between the two camps, there is, however, a pass of 4,918 m. From Camp CCCLVII, it is at a distance of only 2.2 km. S. S. W., and the rise to it is 145 m., the rate of the rise up to the threshold, therefore, being as 1 :15, which is rather steep. On the other side we first go down S. E. some 150 m. to the lowest part of the valley in which we then ascend in the direction of the next pass. The Tibetans asserted that there was another pass across the range situated at some distance farther east, but it was said to be higher and more difficult than the one we crossed this day. The ridge we had to cross was, no doubt, a secondary ramification from the range south of Tongka-tso, and to our eyes, this ridge seemed to be easier towards the east.
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