166 Narrative of a Journey to Cho Lagan, fyc. [Aug. 



to visit the nearest. The exterior view of those which Moorcroft saw 

 (Jakyab and Ju), exhibited nothing but huts pitched on steep banks, 

 and their main interest, I imagine, consists in our ignorance of them. 



The water of Mapan is quite clear and sweet, and in mass of the 

 same fine blue color as Lagan. In picturesque beauty the eastern lake 

 is hardly equal to the other ; its uniform outline being comparatively 

 dull and monotonous, the surrounding hills blank and dreary, and the 

 gigantic grandeur of Gurla less pleasing perhaps than the majestic 

 beauty of Kailas. The Kakshasa have got, in my opinion, the better 

 quarters of the two. 



The depth of these lakes is possibly an average of 100 feet or so, and 

 double that in the deepest places. 



I saw no signs of animal life on Mapan, the Mdnasaucas must have 

 taken their departure for their winter quarters in India ; Moorcroft saw 

 numbers of them here in August (1812). 



Thermometer in the sun at noon rose to 120°, part of which must 

 have been caused by reflection from a Baku (of white woollen stuff), 

 against which the instrument was placed, but in the course of this 

 expedition, I had often found the noon-day sun unpleasantly intense. 



At 3 p. m. Thermometer in shade 46°, boiled at 186° ; elevation of 

 the lake, which was some 175 feet below our camp, 15,250 feet. 



Bhauna and Anand bathed in the lake, by way of Dharm, and not at 

 all for cleanliness, which, as good Kumaonis, they duly set at nought. 



In the afternoon I began to moot the Parkama of Manasarowar ; 

 and suggested the feasibility of doing it in 3 or 4 days, myself with 

 Bhauna and one Bhotia, taking only two of the Zhobus, without tents, 

 bedding, or kitchen, leaving all the rest of the party and baggage to 

 wait our return. Bhauna made sundry hollow professions of readiness 

 to accompany me to Lhassa, or Peking, if I wished to go so far, but I 

 observed him in fact putting excuses into the mouths of the Bhdtias, 

 who were all quite aghast at the idea of thus wantonly adding to aimless 

 risk and trouble, as they considered my expedition from beginning to 

 end. Rechu declared that they had already " Margaye" to a greater 

 degree than on any former occasion of their many visits to Hundes, 

 and that the execution of my plan alone was wanting to make a calami- 

 tous end of them altogether. 



My estimate of the risk of detection was not a tenth part of what 



