24 IN TIBET AND CHINESE TURKESTAN.
the caravan men became unwell too, and had to be doctored, and six ponies and Rassoula's fine donkey died before we were able to depart from " Fever Camp." During the enforced halt, a waste of very precious time, Leno went off on a short excursion for topographical work, which he was able to check a little by the few latitudes which he observed. It was very seldom that he had an opportunity of observing, as, unless my eyes were weak, I invariably did the astronomical work myself, although Leno was well trained and very accurate, and only found difficulty in aligning the theodolite correctly on to south stars, an operation commonly spoken of as " picking up " the stars. On the north side of Yeshil Kul, Leno noticed numerous pillars of stones and of horns of yak, antelope; and sheep built up with mud, all close together, also several circles about a couple of miles in diameter, formed by ditches about one foot deep and four broad, not far from the pillars. The Ladakis said that the Chungpas, or natives of the Chang, built them as places of worship.
For some days after I was free from fever I was too weak to travel. Illness, especially when accompanied by a rise of temperature, has a far greater effect on the human system at these great altitudes than at moderate heights, and, according to my experience, convalescence is slow and attended with an abnormally low temperature. How long this lasts is not recorded in my journal, as I ceased to ascertain my temperature a few days after it was not unusually high. There were numerous storms of rain, hail, and snow during the ten days of our stay near
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Yeshil Kul, a delay which caused very serious inroads into
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'ourvsùpplies. It was with the very best spirits that we
resumed our journey on the 18th of July, in an easterly direction along a fairly broad valley in which we found plenty of grass and some small lakes, at least one of
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