CURIOUS BEHA VIO UR OF MULE. 79
few data on which to generalise. No well-marked limit could be traced, but probably little snow lies all the year round in Western Tibet under 20,000 feet.
The conditions here were trying for the transport animals, and though relieved of their burdens and carefully tended, some of them became so weak that they had to be shot. One very fine mule, which had regularly carried the instruments, behaved so strangely at Camp 61 that we were concerned about her. When driven out to grass she promptly returned to camp and took up a position close to my tent. Then, showing symptoms of colic, she lay down, partly on my tent, at a spot close to the medicine chest, from which large doses of opium and calomel were thereafter taken and poured down her throat. Having a good constitution and a tough inside, the animal survived both the colic and the medicine.
This neighbourhood contained many lakes which showed signs of a great contraction in area. The salt lake at the west of Kaze Chaka must formerly have been several hundreds of feet deeper than now.* At some places we were troubled with dust, but in this respect Camp 63 was by far the worst.
By the beginning of October the minimum thermometer fell to within a few degrees of zero F., and soon after sunset it was impossible to write with ink. The liquid froze in the bottle unless it was held in the hand, and in that case the drop on the pen nib became solid before it could be transferred to paper. I was obliged to record observations in pencil and subsequently to transcribe them by the camp fire, or in a sunny place screened from the cold wind.
The guides now told us that our way was towards Rundor, which was not far off, but the nearer we approached it, the more uncertain they seemed as to
See Appendix I., page 389.
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