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0459 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
中国砂漠地帯の遺跡 : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / 459 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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observations showed, reached heights up to close on
19,000 feet. Here on their north slope the snow-line
descended to about 15,000 feet. As soon as survey and
photographic work was completed we hurried on to the
next pass, the Li-yüan-ta-fan, only about one mile off.
From it a steep descent of over a thousand feet brought
us to the junction of two streams draining the main range.
The track thence turned up the valley to the south-
east, which, in strange contrast to the luxuriant scrub and
grass met before, showed nothing but bare slopes of
detritus. On the higher parts of the spur which we had
to surmount the snow still lay in large beds to within a
thousand feet or so of the pass. The latter, a narrow rocky
saddle, over 14,000 feet above sea, bore not without reason
the designation of Hsi-ta-fan, 'the Snow Pass.' After
the steep pull up its west slope, there was compensation
in an easy descent on the other side, over delightful
mountain meadows and then through a picturesque gorge
of gneiss rock. Less than three miles from the pass we
emerged in the valley of the Ma-so Ho, which was to
open a passage for us through the main range.
From Ch'ing-shui-k'a-tzŭ, where we had camped on
a small plateau carpeted with Alpine flowers and over-
looking some abandoned gold-pits by the river (Fig. 233),
we set out on August 3rd on a glorious morning. A
short thunderstorm the evening before had cleared the
atmosphere; but with a minimum temperature falling to
two degrees Fahrenheit below freezing-point and a heavy
hoar-frost, it took time before the tents were sufficiently
dried for a start. The track up the river led for ten
miles almost throughout over gently sloping meadows;
but in order to keep to such easy ground we had to cross
the stream half-a-dozen times.
As its depth was nowhere more than two feet, 'Dash'
alone felt the trouble, having each time to be caught and
carried across on horseback. My little companion quite
grasped that frequent swims of twenty or thirty yards in
icy-cold water were not the right thing for him; but after
the long months of desert marching he had forgotten the
art acquired in the mountains south of Khotan of jumping