272 



TIBETAN WILD FLOWERS. 



Only remaining one night at HanM, we thence took a 

 westerly direction, and after traversing a long level stretch 

 of dreary country, which appeared quite destitute of any 

 sort of animal, and almost so of vegetable life, we camped 

 late in the afternoon on a patch of greensward in a wild 

 gorge east of the Lanak la, which rises between the Hanl6 

 and Eookshu districts. Next day we crossed the pass, which 

 is somewhere about 17,000 feet high; but, as is so often 

 the case with Tibetan passes, the gradient was easy. Some 

 distance down on its western side, among the broken stony 

 slopes, hares were numerous, but generally so wild as to 



y\ 



Lajna Monastery at HanU. 



afford better rifle-practice than sport for a shot-gun. Here 

 we found perfect parterres of sweetly-scented, pale-blue 

 flowers, with which our Tartars at once proceeded to deck 

 their caps, after the manner of the Swiss mountaineers with 

 the Alpine roses. Notwithstanding the sterile aspect of the 

 country, the variety of beautiful wild flowers growing in 

 many Tibetan localities would delight the heart of a botanist. 

 On a little isolated patch of green beside the Pangong lake, 

 where we stopped one morning to breakfast by a spring, the 

 ground was covered with a plant having flowers like a small 



