National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

10 miles S.W. There is a road the whole way up, and at some places are marks
of camps, such as fire-places, bones and skins of sheep, and rubbish. Animal life
is represented by rabbits and *Arctomys*, wild geese and some kind of big water-
fowls. The road is always at some distance from the river. Hard rock was seen
only at one little promontory to our right, consisting of pyroxenite, plagioclas-amphi-
bolite, and mica-quartzite, dipping 49° to the S. 80° E. On our side of the river
there is a double erosion terrace, on the right side are three terraces, of which the
highest seems to be some 70 m. above the present river. Sometimes these terraces
may easily be confounded with moraine-formations. The terraces remain as tests of
a very energetic erosive action at an earlier period. Since then the glaciers have
retreated farther and farther southwards into the mountains, and the Kubi valley we
see is a work of the past.

A short distance above Camp 200 the river changes its aspect altogether. It
becomes very broad and divided into several branches surrounding flat islands and
banks of mud and clay. The current is very slow and there is not a single rapid.
Here the river cannot be crossed, as its bottom is said to be treacherous quagmire.
The whole bottom of the valley is flat, perfectly horizontal to the eye; the ground
is dust and clay; gravel is seen only in the beds of ravines; only one of them
contained some water. Further south the ground becomes swampy and forces us to
the top of the lowest terrace. This is pierced by the deep-cut valley of the brook
from the Dongdong glacier, situated due west, and south of the glacier which gives
rise to the Chema-yundung. At its junction with the Kubi the Dongdong brook
had about 2¹/₂ cub. m. and is therefore a comparatively small tributary to the main
river. The Dongdong makes a short bend to the south before it empties its green-
greyish water into the dark grey Kubi.

A round pool, surrounded by moraines, and called Tsechung-tso, is passed to
our left. At rare intervals small erratic blocks of granite are passed. The ground
is always comfortable and soft, glacial material. Having crossed a brook with ¹/₃
cub. m., we reach an oblong lake, from the northern end of which the Kubi-tsangpo
issues. The lake is surrounded by low rolling hills, partly moraines, partly sand
dunes, most of them bound by some grass. The water of the lake has the same
dark colour as the Kubi, and may in fact be regarded simply as a wide part of the
river-course. The outlines are extremely irregular, and there appears between the
hills a series of pools with clear water, which therefore are not in connection with
the main lake. There are many islands and peninsulas of mud and sand with grass
in the lake.

On the west the valley is bounded by hills some 500 m. high, here and there
with stripes of snow, and ravines; on the east by a rocky ramification from the
Kubi-gangri, also with snow. All this snow should disappear within a few weeks. Camp
201 is situated near a brook from the N.W., called Shapke-chu, and carrying about
2 cub. m. a second. The absolute altitude is 4,841 cm. (15,878 feet). One would have