CHAPTER XCIV. 
FROM KOKO-NOR TO TEN-KAR 
FTER losing our fourth horse, I bought a mule, and 
x\. on November 12th continued our journey towards 
the east. Soon after starting, we crossed two frozen 
marshes, in which reeds, with their tops broken off, 
pierced through the gleaming sheets of ice, and the ice 
when struck by the horses’ hoofs flew to pieces with a 
sharp snapping sound. The track turned towards the 
east-south-east, and at the same time diverged from the 
lake-shore. The lake, with the dazzling sunshine falling 
straight upon it, glittered in the south like a brightly- 
polished sword-blade. Small troops of antelopes were 
grazing on the steppes ; and in a ravine near by we saw 
half-a-dozen wolves lying in wait for them. But the 
antelopes were on the alert. The leader of the troop kept 
glancing keenly about him ; and as .soon as they scented 
danger, off they went with a swiftness that w'as fairly 
astounding. They cleared the ground in long rapid leaps, 
and so lightly that they hardly seemed to touch the 
earth. 
We gradually approached the Northern Mountains, in 
which merely a summit here and there was capped with 
snow. In the south-east however there was a prominent 
snow-covered mountain - knot, and between the two, the 
Northern Roko-nor Range and the mountain-knot, was 
an indentation, which I was told was the pass of Khara- 
kottel. The Southern Koko-nor Range was dimly visible 
obliquely across the lake. But when we looked along the 
lake from end to end, we could no longer see the mountains 
on the opposite shores. 
