Southern Tibet : vol.4 / Page 446 (Color Image)

0446	Southern Tibet : vol.4

be seen, but abundant dung of wild yak and kyang proved that these animals are
no rare guests in the valley.

Our valley is broad and its rise, imperceptible. It is altogether filled with
this fine grey clay spoken of above. To the south, it is bordered by high snow-
covered mountains. In this region no explorer had been before, as Bower travelled
from Shemen-tso to Aru-tso, and Rawling only crossed the valley farther east.

At the first spring the living rock had been greenish grey felspar-sandstone;
at the second little slope we crossed, it was dark schist partly containing much
mica. Pan. 411A and B, Tab. 74, is drawn from Camp CCCXXV. To the N. 35° W.,
are some of the hills of the left side. To the north and N. E., are the considerable
mountains of the right side of the valley. Between N. 35° W. and N. 4° W., the
valley turns to the left or N. W. and goes slowly down to Shemen-tso. To the
east and S. 81° E., is the isolated mountain block standing between the two valleys.
To the S. E. we see the continuation of the large valley by which we marched to
Camp CCCXXVI, the next day. To the S. S. E. and south is another part of the
range on the left or southern side of our valley. The panorama, therefore, shows
that the latter is bounded by rather high ranges.

The march of February 10th, took us 7.9 km. S. E., and now the rise of the
valley became more sensible, though still very gradual, or 40 m., as Camp CCCXXVI
had an altitude of 4,941 m., the rate was thus 1 : 198. After a temperature of
—22.4° in the night, the weather remained as fine, clear and calm as the days be-
fore. The characteristic features of the valley were the clay beds, the small hills
and undulations of clay and the clay terraces. Grass and ice were abundant, and
the landscape had not the wild, barren and desolate appearance which we were
accustomed to. The valley becomes broader, and is as Rawling, who has crossed
it meridionally, says, a real plain surrounded by mountains. But when he says that
water is scanty, he must either have passed here in a very dry year, or crossed
the valley on a line where water is not in sight. For, since the valley of Shayok,
we had not come across so much water as here. It was even a little too much now,
as we had constantly to cross ice-sheets, one of which was about 100 m. wide.
Some 10 or 12 springs were passed in this short distance, all of them with open
water. One of them had grown like a kind of »ice-volcano», a conical mound of
ice, from the »crater» of which the water streamed out. Having crossed the prin-
cipal ice bed near Camp CCCXXV, we had grassy steppe nearly the whole way.
To the east, in our immediate vicinity, the isolated group mentioned above was left.
From it several springs come down. The main bed of the valley with its ice, is to
our right. From W. N. W., a large tributary valley opens out; at its southern pro-
montory the remains of a Tibetan camp were to be seen. Fuel was abundant, both
vegetable and dung of wild yak and kyang. This place seemed to be more suitable

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

Citation Information

OCR Text

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

Citation Information

OCR Text

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