TIBET. 
215 
Setting out, after an early breakfast, on Wednesday, the 17th of 
September, we continued for two or three miles, within sight of the 
stream which I have noticed, till it joined a broad lake, that extended 
farther than we could trace, being hemmed in by rocks, which ob 
structed our view. 
This lake, I am told, is held in high respect by the inhabitants of 
Bootan, whose superstitions lead them to consider the increase or de¬ 
crease of its waters, as portentous of good or evil to their nation. They 
fancy it to be a favourite haunt of one of their chief deities. 
The road, after passing this defile, turned short to the right, round 
the skirts of a small village, and proceeded over an extensive plain, 
quite destitute of verdure, of an arid soil, and covered with small 
stones. On quitting this, we turned round the point of a hill, and 
came down upon another plain, white with the same sort of incrus¬ 
tation, which we had seen the day before. There was no water, nor 
did it appear that there ever had been any, on this plain; whence it 
should seem, that this saline substance is sublimed from the earth, and 
not a separation from impregnated water. The salt, I believe, is called 
by the chemists, natron, and by the natives of Hindostan, where it is 
found in great abundance, sedgy multi: it rises in an efflorescence 
from the dry plains, resembling a hoar frost. Some deer bounded 
across our path. 
As we proceeded, several narrow prospects opened, of the snowy 
mountains to the south: not those we had formerly seen, but a conti¬ 
nuation, I imagine, of the same range that borders on Bootan, and 
constitutes its frontier. The brown heath, and russet-coloured rocks, 
