CH. XXXVI ARRIVAL AT FROZEN LAKE 423
cones with living tamarisks. Here we first noticed the droppings of hares and deer, and the tracks made by them and smaller jungle animals. We followed the depression, manifestly the bed of a recent lagoon with traces of a flood channel cutting through it to the south-west, and after another three miles were attracted by a luxuriant bed of reeds.
While the camels fell to grazing on this with the hunger of some ten foodless days (Fig. 13o), we ascended a low sand-ridge close by in order to get a look-out. Suddenly Aga - bergan, the ` Kharat' or carpenter, recognized a Toghrak grove in which only a year before he had helped to make a Loplik's ` dug-out,' and assured us that the lagoon of Köteklik-köl with its fishermen's station was quite near ! The men shouted with joy, and we all pushed on westwards through the thick scrub and reeds until less than half a mile beyond we stood on the north shore of the hard-frozen winding lake.
IIIF Color HighRes
