ioo8 
THROUGH ASIA 
ran to the tent-ropes, and held on like grim death, else 
the tent would have gone over. Down swished the hail, 
so fiercely that it actually whistled past our ears. The 
horses and other animals w'ere alarmed and stopped 
grazing, and in five minutes — the squall was past, driving 
east at a terrific pace. No fresh clouds appeared in the 
west. The atmosphere again became still and calm, and 
a splendid, bright starry evening followed. But it was 
not destined to last, for all the early part of the night 
everything was shrouded in a thick mist, so thick that we 
could not even see the little hill at the foot of which 
we were encamped. 
During the squall, and frequently afterwards too, it 
seemed to me that the clouds swept along in actual contact 
with the surface of the earth. When the black storms 
drove past with their hanging fringes of cloud, the 
glittering white snowfields on the mountain-sides became 
dark and gloomy; but in the morning, when the air was 
again clear and bright, the eternal snows dazzled us with, 
if it were possible, an even more glorious brilliancy. 
August 25th. We travelled towards the south-east, 
and for more than three hours across an almost level plain. 
The little brook flowing towards the south-west proved 
however that it was not absolutely horizontal, but that 
there was a slight fall towards the small lake into which 
it emptied. On the way we crossed three glacial streams, 
but none of them powerful enough to excavate a definite 
channel for itself They were each split into a great 
number of rivulets, which united and divided again and 
again in a highly capricious manner. The ground beside 
each rivulet was sopping wet, so that the horses sank 
in over the fetlocks, and every time they lifted their 
feet the action was accompanied by the “skwulsh” of 
watery suction. 
d he next brook we crossed flowed towards the east, so 
that we had passed over a watershed without observing 
it. Here and there we perceived small patches of yeylak 
(grassy herbage), with abundant droppings of khulans 
(wild asses) and antelopes near them. About two miles 
