34 IN TIBET AND CHINESE TURKESTAN.
much bother, but, so great was the fascination of absolutely unknown country, that we elected to discard a practical certainty and trust to Providence in advancing further east over virgin ground. Even now I had not completely recovered from the effects of the illness at " Fever Camp," and it is to this weakness that I must ascribe the disinclination to measure a suitable base soon after completing the daily march. It was now the turn of my riding pony to give in. While being off-saddled at Camp 27 he fell down ; the next morning he again temporarily collapsed ; subsequently he was able to proceed . for a few miles without any greater weight than a saddle on his back, but then he finally succumbed.
Striking contrasts in scenery are by no means uncommon in Tibet, as for instance, in the country around Aru Cho. On the western side of this lake, which we ascertained to be of a different size from that marked on the latest map of Tibet, there is a fine range of snow-clad mountains extending beyond the northern and southern shores of the lake, but on the eastern side there are only comparatively low mountains, none of which exceed 19,500 feet in altitude. .. Not far from the foot of the snow range in the south-west corner of Aru Cho there is an unusually - large supply of wild rhubarb, which, though inferior to the cultivated kind, was not despised by us.- The quality of the grass in this neighbourhood is infinitely superior to that of the coarse and very sharp kind, called " lungma "Thy Ladakis, previously encountered. Here a small, soft, fine -grâss, known to the _Argûns as " peelee," largely preponderated, much to
Once more inability to estimate distance correctly was e bmught home to us. When leaving Camp 29, we fully ,expected to pitch our next camp on the other side of a
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