A Canvas Canoe 303 



afternoon, only paddling across deep indentations 

 in the coast. What a queer sight we should 

 have presented on an English towing-path ! First, 

 the long line of little baggage-ponies with their 

 pig-tailed drivers scrambling along the loose rocks 

 which lined the shore. In places the cliffs de- 

 scended sheer into the water, and the ponies 

 were taken a cut inland, but generally there was 

 a sort of natural towing-path, which could be 

 traced all round the lake some fifteen feet above 

 water. It was the water-line of some past period, 

 very rough, and covered with angular fragments 

 of rock, but practicable for Ladaki ponies, who 

 are as nimble as goats. Next came our towers, 

 a couple of Ladaki men, usually riding, wearing 

 cloaks of sheepskin about their waists. Lastly 

 the "Alys" and ourselves in her, slipping along 

 in deep blue water twenty or thirty feet out. I 

 call the water blue, for generally it was sapphire- 

 hued as the Mediterranean ; but now and then we 

 passed over patches where the nature of the lake- 

 bed changed it into all wonderful shades of gleam- 

 ing green, but so transparent that, when calm, 

 one could see the boulder-covered bottom at 

 great depths ; but it was a dead sea, without 

 weeds or fish or any signs of organic life. Some 

 of the rocks of which the cliffs were composed 

 were themselves of a dark - green colour, a 



