Southern Tibet : vol.4 / Page 449 (Color Image)

0449	Southern Tibet : vol.4

247

It had snowed again and the whole country was white. The snow lay, as a rule,
only a few centimeters deep, but in ravines and furrows, half a meter and more.
Very likely this snowfall only touched the highest parts of this high protuberance
of western *Chang-tang*, and probably no precipitation fell around *Shemen-tso* and
other comparatively lower regions. In the morning half the sky was clear, and
half covered with light white clouds. At 9 o'clock a. m. the whole sky was over-
clouded and to the south and S. W., very dark and compact clouds appeared. To
the east and E. S. E. as well, the weather looked very menacing and a sort of
snow-fog seemed to surround the mountains in the vicinity of the next pass in
front of us. In the course of the day, however, no snow fell and there was nearly
no wind.

After crossing the ice-sheet at *Camp CCCXXVII*, we ascend the flat slopes
of the hills along the southern side of the valley where the rise becomes more and
more sensible to our tired animals. There is some grass on these hills. To our
left we have the bed of the main watercourse of the valley with its ice-sheet and to
the north of it a considerable range with eternal snow and even a few quite rudi-
mentary glaciers. The ground was rotten from rabbits' holes. The tracks of the
small rodents were seen everywhere in the fresh snow. *Pantholops* antelopes were
very numerous in flocks on the floor of the latitudinal valley, and amongst them a
few individuals of the small *Gazella* antelopes were grazing. As it proved after-
wards, it would have been better for us to follow the latitudinal valley eastwards
instead of climbing to the little threshold of 5,317 m., a direction which we thought
should bring us more quickly to the definite pass. From the little threshold we
behold to the east and S. E., an open arena plain, to which we had to descend
again and cross before entering the pass valley. From here it was, however, impos-
sible to tell in which direction the pass valley was situated. We still did not know how
far this high part of the *Chang-tang* was stretching, nor whether the *Snowy Range*
of Bower and Rawling was in connection with it. The general stretching of the
ranges in this part of Tibet was N. W.—S. E. and W. N. W.—E. S. E., as could be
expected, but obviously there existed also meridional ranges and ramifications. The
whole morphology of the latitudinal valley we had now been following so many days,
proved, on the other hand, that the pass in front of us was a water-parting threshold
in the valley itself, of the same kind as those of which we had crossed so many in
the late autumn of 1906.

So far, we had had no reason to complain of the grazing grounds in the
valley and our last 14 caravan animals, the survivers of 40, had taken the five last
days without losses. Around *Camp CCCXXVIII*, however, the grass was very
poor on account of the 5,317 m. height. Pan. 413, Tab. 75, shows the high moun-
tains to the north, east and S. E., and to the E. S. E. the direction of the pass.

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

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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