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blue-green water, and dunes of yellow sand combine to make a picture like those sublime quiet landscapes, which have become familiar through Sven Hedin's Tibetan sketches.
The first European who visited the lake was Trebeck in 1820. Cunningham gives the legend of the lake which explains its unusual name. We heard the same legend at bKor-rdzod. Although the tale is quite without a point, Cunningham says that it is as good as many a Greek tale. The word Thsonao means ' lake, ' and Riri is an exclamation used by people when driving yaks. According to the tale, an old woman came riding on a yak and made the animal wade into the water. She was shouting Ri9'i all the time, and was finally drowned together with her yak. It is strange that Trebeck does not make any mention of a monastery on the lake, although he travelled along its western shore. All the same, the convent must have been in existence in his time, for in an inscription which I found on one of the many mani walls which line the lake shore, the expression d Gon-snying, ancient monastery, was used with reference to it. These mini walls extend to about two miles in both directions from the monastery (Plate XXIV, a). The votive tablets on these walls contained the names of several chiefs of the Rubshu nomads who have their residence close to the monastery. Of royal Ladakhi names, I found only two mentioned, those of the two last independent rulers of Ladakh. But another tablet near the monastery contained a very beautiful hymn on Tibet, especially its western parts. This hymn was more of a geographical than historical character. W e took an impression of this inscription, and I had to make an eye-copy in addition.
I visited the monastery next morning and was disappointed to hear that it was a modern structure, between fifty and sixty years old.' The old monastery stood on the brook, below the present site ; but not a trace of it now remains. The few ancient images and other articles of worship were taken up to the present building. Among the antiquities pointed out to us, were several miniature mchod-reen of the usual type. Of all the stucco figures; and of a fine wood-carving in sandal wood, which represented Padma-sambhava with two of his fairy friends, it was asserted that fifty or sixty years ago they had been brought up here from gSham, Lower Ladakh. I suspect that these Rubshu people bought up the entire contents of a ruined monastery in Lower Ladakh. The principal stucco figure represents Buddha with two disciples, and another Padma-sambhava. The names of the other images, I did not try to ascertain, because the history of their date and origin will always remain obscure. I may mention here, that outside, near the site of the ancient monastery, I found a relievo representing Padma-sambhava, carved on a beautiful slab of snow-white quartz. I was greatly tempted to carry it off, but it would have been too heavy. One of the clay pots in the bKor-rdzod monastery reminded me of the stone age of Europe. It had evidently been made by plastering the inside of a basket with clay and then burning the basket. All the books at this monastery were modern Tibetan prints.
The neck ornament of a man at bgor-rdzod who acted as Lambarddr, attracted my attention, because it was of cruciform shape, and could at first sight be taken for a Christian ornament. He said, he had excavated it from a high hill in the neighbourhood.
1 A picture of the old monastery is found in Schlagintweits' Reisen in Indien und Hochasien Jena 1872-18.
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