DESERT. 
67 
have been detached from the peaks above by the 
action of the weather, and form enormous slopes, 
sometimes many thousand feet in height, somewhat 
resembUng a newly-made railway embankment. 
On the morning of July 16fch, at Pdng Lung, the 
minimum thermometer placed out in the open air all 
night registered as low as 23° F., or nine degrees below 
the freezing point. 
Our Tibetan camp-followers always slept in the 
open air, and did not appear to feel the cold. At 
first I offered some of them the use of a spare tent, 
but they would not take the trouble to pitch it. They 
usually built a low wall of stones, in the fornl of a 
semicircle, with the concave side looking in the direc- 
tion opposite to that from which the wind was blow- 
ing. The winds in Laddk blow with great regularity 
up the valleys during the day, and down the valleys 
during the night. In very open ground I invariably 
found that the wind was from a south-westerly direc- 
tion ; and when clouds were seen, either in Ladak or 
Yarkand, they were always moving nearly in the 
direction from south-west to north-east. Under 
shelter of the stone walls, which are about four feet 
high, the Tibetans sleep huddled together ; each 
man in a sitting posture, with his back against the 
wall, the knees drawn up, and the chin resting on 
the breast between the knees, in a position which 
would be extremely uncomfortable to ordinary 
mortals. These Tibetans, or Bots, as they call them- 
selves (Bodyul, i.e. Bodland, is the name they give to 
Tibet), all wear the hair plaited into a long pigtail 
behind, and many of them have marked Chinese 
features. They are all clad in very thick woollen 
F 2 
