A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



steadily for four hours, our camp of the previous 

 night must have been pretty high. Whilst resting 

 here I observed a peculiar phenomenon. It was 

 about midday, there was a heavy storm over the 

 peaks to the eastwards, and the sun was shining 

 vaguely from a misty sky, while all round, and at 

 some distance from it, was a halo as bright in its 

 prismatic colours as a rainbow. I fancy that it may 

 have been caused by ice-particles in the atmosphere, 

 but have never observed it before or since. That 

 evening we arrived at our old camping-place, Thugji, 

 but not till after we had made a very long and 

 disagreeable march. The wind blew with more 

 than ordinary fury, and the last few miles through 

 heavy sand, after a long day's work, were very 

 trying. Night fell as we reached the camping- 

 place, and the tents being, of course, on the last 

 yaks, it was pitch dark long before they were 

 put up. 



The following day we rested in camp, and I took 

 a gun and went round the Salt Lake, getting a few 

 geese and " Brahminy " ducks, also a specimen of 

 the Thibetan fox (Vulpes Ferrilatus], a pretty 

 little animal with lovely fur. On this occasion I 

 noticed and examined the very curious horizontal 

 lines, " ice-margin" marks, as Drew calls them, 

 that run round the basin of the Tso-Kar, and which 

 would tend to show that the lake, or more correctly, 

 lakes (as there are two, one salt and one fresh), are 

 gradually drying up. 



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