!24 DONKIA PASS. Chap. XXII. 



demands the first notice : the Cholamoo lake lay 1500 feet 

 below me, at the bottom of a rapid and rocky descent ; it 

 was a blue sheet of water, three or four miles from north 

 to south, and one and a half broad, hemmed in by rounded 

 spurs from Kinchinjhow on one side, and from Donkia 

 on the other : the Lachen flowed from its northern extre- 

 mity, and turning westward, entered a broad barren valley, 

 bounded on the north by red stony mountains, called 

 Bhomtso, which I saw from Kongra Lama, and ascended 

 with Dr. Campbell in the October following : though 

 18,000 to 19,000 feet high, these mountains were wholly 

 unsnowed. Beyond this range lay the broad valley of the 

 Arun, and in the extreme north-west distance, to the north 

 of Nepal, were some immense snowy mountains, reduced 

 to mere specks on the horizon. The valley of the Arun 

 was bounded on the north by very precipitous black rocky 

 mountains, sprinkled with snow ; beyond these again, 

 from north to north-west, snow-topped range rose over 

 range in the clear purple distance. The nearer of these 

 was the Kiang-lah, which forms the axis or water- shed of 

 this meridian ; its south drainage being to the Arun river, 

 and its north to the Yaru-tsampu : it appeared forty to 

 fifty miles off, and of great mean elevation (20,000 feet) : 

 the vast snowy mountains that rose beyond it were, I was 

 assured, beyond the Yaru, in the salt lake country.* A 

 spur from Chomiomo cut off the view to the southward 

 of north-west, and one from Donkia concealed all to the 

 east of north. 



The most remarkable features of this landscape were its 



* This salt country was described to me as enormously lofty, perfect y 

 sterile, and fourteen days' march for loaded men and sheep from Jigat : 

 there is no pasture for yaks, whose feet are cut by the rocks. The salt is 

 dug (so they express it) from the margin of lakes ; as is the carbonate of sc ., 

 " Pieu" of the Tibetans. 



