214 
THROUGH ASIA 
now, plainly enough, on the Chinese side of the frontier. 
We were no longer to be indulged with such luxuries and 
comforts. How many a night after that did we not sleep 
under the open sky ! Such was our fate on this the first 
night of our trip. We endeavoured to make the best 
of circumstances, by looking about for a hollow that was 
in some degree sheltered from the wind. We found one 
in a part of the valley called Kayindeh-dala (the Birch 
Plain). A singularly inappropriate name, for the ground 
was stony and barren, and there was not a single specimen 
of the graceful green lacework which drapes the birch to 
be seen. Very possibly however the name is a survival 
from a time when those trees did grow in the locality. 
We encamped under the shelter of a huge block of 
gneiss, which leaned over a little towards the south. 
Round the front of it somebody had built up a low wall 
of stones, which afforded some measure of protection 
against at any rate the worst of the wind. We piled the 
l^aggage all round us, spread out our carpets, and made 
our camp as comfortable as we could ; and when shortly 
afterwards our ears were greeted with the bubbling of the 
soup over the fire of teresken faggots we were as happy 
as kings. But the wind whistled in through the crevices 
between the stones, and dust and sand kept swirling 
round us in eddies, so that our teeth gritted every time 
we took a mouthful of food. Once during the evening 
it snowed a little, but about ten o’clock the weather 
changed with marvellous suddenness. The atmosphere 
became calm, and the sky clear. Then the moon came 
forth and poured her light into our grotto, and lit up 
the desolate scene, deepening the oppressive silence and 
making the valley appear ten times more dreary and 
awe-inspiring than it was before. 
April 15th. The farther we went towards the soutR 
the more broken grew the surface. We came to the little 
Alpine lake of Bassyk-kul, with its fantastic shore-line, 
leading me to think that its deep inlets must have been 
carved out by the most capricious of the brownies. The 
middle of the lake was crusted with ice, brittle and porous ; 
