TSEKOU TO KHAMTI 



march was torn apart, and the horizon in the west was glowing 

 clear. In the foreground below me the land fell in green terraces, 

 dotted with dark stunted firs, towards the Kiou-kiang. The river 

 itself could be divined, though not discerned. North-west, a lofty 

 range, erect, stern, and snow-clad, formed Nature's fit, if forbidding, 

 barrier to Thibet. Away to the west-south-west opened a gap, an 

 ample valley fringed with lesser mountains, above which the zenith 

 lay blue, flecked with white cloud. That was no sky of China ; — • 

 imagination caught afar a visionary glimpse of India. Backward, 

 whence we had come, the eye revisited the chain of separation 

 now searched by the setting sun, which glistened on a recent 

 whitening of the crests. It leaped the whole interjacent river 

 basin, and scanned their well-known features, to where, appearing 

 in a cleft, Garnier Peak stood up, sprinkled with fresh snow, and 

 set like a miniature in perspective. It wheeled to the left, and 

 rested in the north upon a lonely rounded summit, Pemachou, 

 the legendary cradle of the Loutse race. That night we slept in 

 considerable contentment with the ideas conjured up by our wide 

 prospect, and recked little that the thermometer stood only two 

 degrees above freezing. 



8th (October). — Following the spurs we continued to descend, 

 at first among bamboos, and later in rhododendrons. Beneath 

 their spreading roots we passed more skeletons, the blood con- 

 gealed upon the skulls, with derelict bowls and strainers. In the 

 bottom of the valley we sighted the Kiou-kiang, running over a 

 shingle bed, blue as the Aar. Casting about for a camping ground 

 about 900 feet above the river, we came across two little 

 thatched bamboo huts on piles. The thresholds stood agape, 

 the hearths deserted. In the abandoned garden were remains of 



tobacco culture, pumpkins, beans, and plantains, — and beneath a 



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