346 MOUNTAINS OF JASPER. 



rather a tedious business, which was accomplished by their 

 being placed, a few at a time, on little rafts made of a rough 

 framework of thin sticks tied over about a dozen small in- 

 flated goat-skins. Each raft was towed into the stream as far 

 as possible, and then paddled across the deeper rapid water 

 by a couple of sturdy Tartars in the costume of their most 

 ancient forefather, minus the fig-leaves. After a considerable 

 amount of splashing and exertion, the latter chiefly of the 

 lungs, the raft reached the opposite shore several hundred 

 yards lower down stream than the starting-point. 



We had already seen some bright colouring on these 

 Tibetan mountains, but nothing to compare with what we 

 beheld along our desolate route between Numa and Hanle. 

 There some of the high rocky eminences looked actually 

 blood-red in the reflected light of the setting sun. As the 

 ground we traversed was in some places literally paved with 

 fragments, large and small, of a kind of red jasper, which had 

 evidently been detached from the heights above, we naturally 

 concluded, from the colour of the latter, that they too were 

 entirely formed of the same valuable material which here 

 seemed so common. Among these red fragments I observed 

 others of a dull black hue, which when broken presented a 

 shining metallic surface. They were so extraordinarily heavy, 

 that I concluded they must have contained either quicksilver 

 or lead. How often I wished I could have wielded the geolo- 

 gist's hammer to some purpose up here in such a rich field for 

 its use. 



The hamlet of Hanle*, which we reached in three days, is 

 the chief and almost the only inhabited place in the exten- 

 sive district of the same name. Although so prominently 

 marked in maps, it consists merely of some miserable- looking 

 stone hovels situated at the foot of an isolated eminence sur- 

 mounted by a big gompa. On our arrival we were received 

 by the Lama Superior or Abbot of the monastery. This 

 divine, who also acted as " Goba " or head-man of the pro- 



