THE PANGONG TSO. 303 



consequent on a state of semi-civilisation ! Strange it is that 

 in a land whose bleak sterile appearance is calculated, one 

 would suppose, to depress the spirits, such a cheery race of 

 people is to be found. It seems as though their light hearts 

 were given them by a kind Providence as some compensation 

 for the dreariness of their country. But let us hie onward. 



We noticed many pairs of the ruddy sheldrake, commonly 

 known in India as the Brahminee duck evidently up here 

 to nest where our way for several miles led beside a sluggish 

 stream flowing tortuously between banks of bright green turf, 

 which was quite a treat to behold in this desert land, where 

 green is conspicuous by its absence. 



On the second morning we reached the western end of the 

 Pangong tso (lake), when, on emerging from a long glen 

 flanked on the one side by steep stony slopes, on the other by 

 beetling cliffs of a yellowish hue, 1 such a wonderful prospect 

 suddenly presented itself as to amply repay any one for the 

 long toilsome journey which lias to be undergone to behold it. 



Beneath a cloudless sky, the deep sapphire blue of which 

 was rendered extraordinarily intense in the rippling waves 

 that reflected it, lay this salt-water lake, at an elevation of 

 14,000 feet, stretching away for about thirty miles of its 

 visible length, its width being about five or six. From its 

 shores of pale-yellow sand, on either side rose barren heights 

 some of them streaked and capped with perpetual snow 

 whose brilliant yet harmoniously blended colouring of every 

 tint except green baffles all description. Here and there a 

 pure white glacier lay between the ridges that stretched down 

 towards the water, and sometimes jutted into it in fantastic- 

 shaped promontories and bluffs, their successive receding out- 

 lines growing more faint, until hardly distinguishable against 



1 These tall cliffs were entirely formed of a rather friable kind of alabaster 

 or gypsum, as we found from the snow-white blocks of it, recently detached 

 from above, that had rolled down below, the yellow colour on the surface 

 being caused by the action of the weather. 



