ioi8 
THROUGH ASIA 
solitary khulan, a beautiful animal, striped with brown 
and greyish-yellow, kept ahead of the caravan for close 
upon two hours, but always at a long distance from us. 
Sometimes he trotted, sometimes he galloped, with his 
little tail sticking straight out behind him, but always with 
his head proudly arched, the incarnation of vigilant energy. 
Ever and anon he stopped and turned round and gazed at 
us, and uttered a curious sound, something between the 
horse’s whinny and the donkey’s bray. But no sooner did 
we approach nearer than off he went again, and so on time 
after time, as though he wanted to show us the way. 
Then Yollbars, our other big shaggy dog, set off after 
him. Strange to say, the khulan was not in the least 
alarmed, but stopped as soon as he saw the dog. At this 
Yollbars was taken suddenly aback, and stood stock still. 
That seemed to divert the khulan. He plucked up courage 
and charged straight down upon the dog. It was now 
Yollbars’ turn to flee, and back he came galloping to the 
caravan with his tail between his lees. 
The ground still continued extraordinarily level. True, 
we had numbers of low hills on both sides of us, but they 
were either ramifications of the mountains behind or stood 
singly isolated. The usual hailstorm came on at half-past 
one — came as unfailingly every day about the same time 
as though its onset were regulated by clockwork. 
At length we turned off towards the south-east, enticed 
by some green hills a little way off. There we found 
another small lake, into which various tiny brooks emptied 
themselves. We halted on its southern shore after a march 
of 1 6 ^ miles. 
The water in the lake was slightly saline, but had a very 
disagreeable flavour, so that we were unable to drink it. 
Islam Bai tried to stalk a khulan, but was unsuccessful. 
The evening was clear and still, not a sound reached our 
lonely camp. We were alone in the boundless wilds of 
Tibet. 
