538 BOGDO-OLA 



poplars were practical!}- in leaf, wheat was six inches 

 above the ground, and summer-birds were singing ; 

 but on the first night after leaving Guchen rain occurred, 

 and on the second a heavy snow-fall. Violent winds 

 got up at a few minutes' notice ; nature seemed to be 

 always in the throes of some great cyclonic disturb- 

 ance. We saw valleys which gave the impression of 

 being cleared by sudden storm-bursts ; the river-beds 

 were wide, although, at this season, they contained little 

 water ; but dead timber lying high and dry above the 

 ordinary- water-level, and great log-jams in the streams, 

 were suggestive of the floods that occur so frequently. 



A sparse population of farmers and nomads lived on 

 the lower slopes, but the main valle}^ which drained 

 from the sacred lake, — although a smiling land of 

 grass and flowers, where streamlets ran beneath the 

 chequered shade of elm and willow groves,— remained 

 untenanted, a reserve too holy for the use of man. A 

 day's march takes the pilgrim up the length of this 

 silent valley, and through a frowning gorge, beyond 

 which he will find himself confronted b\' a great barrier 

 entirely blocking the valle}'. This wall of moraine de- 

 posits, which has dammed the valley and caused the 

 formation of the Bogdo-ola lake above it, was the most 

 perfect I had ever seen. From below it looked almost 

 artificial, with its smooth, unbroken slope and level top. 

 Grass and forest covered it in part, and here and there 

 water, draining through from the lake beyond, burst 

 out and formed cascades down the bank. 



On reaching the top of the barrier w^e came suddenly 

 into \dew of the long-hidden lake and of the snow- 

 peaks which form its background. Small wonder that 

 the pious natives considered this region sacred and 



