242 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



call of the Brahminy duck or the distant note 

 of wild geese. 



The plain is at this season of a yellowy-green 

 tint, from the coarse scanty grass with which it 

 is covered, gradually fading into a lighter shade 

 where the plain becomes mountain. White patches 

 here and there mark borax and soda efflor- 

 escence. The sun beats down with the intensity 

 only felt in thin air. The scene is not without 

 animal life, for a herd of kyang, or wild asses, 

 can be seen on the yellow shale slopes, distant 

 it may be half a mile, it may be treble as far, 

 manoeuvring in sections and half sections like 

 a troop of cavalry. Distances cannot be judged 

 in the clear air of Tibet. Nearer still, where 

 the grass is thickest, little spots of white, ap- 

 pearing and disappearing, show, to the keen-eyed 

 only, the presence of a herd of goa, or Tibetan 

 gazelle. 



The human element is present in a few black 

 tents pitched near an arm of the lake. Their 

 changpa owners can be seen sitting at their tent- 

 doors spinning wool, or else moving about among 

 the hundreds of yaks and goats scattered round 

 the encampment. 



It is nothing short of marvellous how these 

 shepherds of Rupshu support an existence, the 

 conditions of which are so inimical to life. They 



