lOIO 
THROUGH ASIA 
south, and south-west, round a hill which had much steeper 
slopes than any of the hills we had previously encountered. 
Upon reaching its summit, we were uncertain which way 
to go, for on every side we were hemmed in by extremely 
broken country — a perfect labyrinth of hills, with brooks 
winding amongst them in every direction without any 
apparent order, except that they all joined a deep stream, 
with green transparent water, and a volume of 175 cubic 
feet in the second, flowing towards the south-west. 
After the almost monotonous regularity of the rivers 
of East Turkestan, all of which flow towards one common 
centre — Lop-nor, it was an unfamiliar and even strange 
experience to witness this irregularity of direction and this 
diversity of slope. One hour of our march the brooks 
would flow towards the east, the next towards the west, 
or south, or north. Even yet we could not gather where 
the last stream really meant to go to. However, we still 
continued to push on steadily to the south-east, ascending 
a steep glen or gully, on whose grass-grown sides there 
were such enormous quantities of yak and wild ass dung 
that it would have served us with fuel for several years. 
Nor were there wanting plenty of fresh spoor of the 
animals themselves. 
At length we reached the pass at the head of the glen, 
and lo ! a magnificent picture spread out at our feet. On 
the farther side the pass plunged down steeply to an 
exceptionally large lake, extending from east to west. 
Its water was a beautiful light green colour, but over the 
shallow parts yellow. And now the difficulty of deciding 
which way to go was seriously increa.sed, for at its eastern 
end the lake was overhung by almost perpendicular moun- 
tains ; while in the west, but at some distance from it, 
were a series of low fenny marshes, and from the south 
we were cut off by the lake itself. 
After weighing the matter for a while, we decided to 
halt and make a reconnaissance of the surrounding country. 
The caravan piloted its way carefully down the steep 
slopes to the northern shore of the lake, and there the 
men pitched the tents in a tolerably sheltered spot between 
