i6o 
THROUGH ASIA 
front of the entrance made a fire of teresken faggots. 
Then, having taken our supper, we spent a raw, cold, 
disagreeable night, with the temperature down to — 20°2 
Fahr. ( — 29° C.), at an altitude of 13,000 feet above the 
level of the sea. 
We woke up early the following morning, frozen, 
numbed, and out of humour. We rode across the ice 
about three miles due west from the island, then stopped 
and set about sounding the depth of the western basin. 
The normal tension of the ice was of course the same 
in every quarter. Our riding over it naturally disturbed 
the equilibrium, by increasing the downward pressure. 
As we moved along, every step the horses took was 
accompanied by peculiar sounds. One moment there 
was a growling like the deep bass notes of an organ ; 
the next it was as though somebody were thumping 
a big drum in the “flat below”; then came a crash as 
though a railway-carriage door was being banged to ; 
then as though a big round stone had been flung into 
the lake. These sounds were accompanied by alternate 
whistlings and whinings ; whilst every now and again 
we seemed to hear far-off submarine explosions. At 
every loud report the horses twitched their ears and 
started, whilst the men glanced at one another with 
superstitious terror in their faces. The Sarts believed 
that the sounds were caused by “ big fishes knocking 
their heads against the ice.” But the more intelligent 
Kirghiz instructed them there were no fish in Kara-kul. 
Then when 1 asked them what was the cause of the 
strange sounds we heard under the ice, and what was 
going on there, they answered with true Oriental phlegm, 
“ Khoda billadi ” (God alone knows!). Anyway, if the 
faithless Lady Ran * were hatching mischief against 
us, she strangely miscalculated her power. The ice did 
not break ; it would have borne the whole of the city 
of Stockholm. 
'I'hat day too we were favoured with splendid weather 
— not a speck of cloud, not a breath of wind. There 
* The goddess of lakes in the old Scandinavian mythology. 
