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TIBET. 
comprehended in the same view, heightened the effect. The snow had 
assumed ten thousand varying folds, and dissimilar forms, in falling 
upon the rocks; nor could the finest imagination, directing the pencil 
of the most skilful painter, possibly express the sublime beauty that 
characterised the drapery, which this pure light substance had spread 
over their craggy tops. It was a glorious day; not a vapour obscured 
the air, or obstructed the view, to the edge of the horizon all around: 
the sun was not yet so high, as to have totally withdrawn the shadows, 
thrown by its oblique rays from one mountain on the other, but it 
imparted to every hill, all the advantage that a prospect could derive, 
from the happiest combination of light and shade. 
We descended from this plain, upon the dry bed of a large lake. 
The ancient banks, of nearly the same acclivity and height, were clearly 
to be traced all around. On the eastern side, it gave rise to a brook, 
whose clearness betrayed numberless shoals of small fish gliding 
near its bottom, as it hurried over a gravelly bed, to join another 
stream a little farther off. They formed together no inconsiderable 
river, which, enlarging as it went along, shaped its course near our 
road all the way, and fell at length near Teshoo Loomboo, into the 
Berhampooter. 
On the banks that bordered this low ground, which I conclude to 
have been at some time covered with water, were a vast number of 
pebbles and loose stones, that bore evident signs of having been rolled 
and rounded by the action of water. We encamped on its borders, 
near the village Sumdta, fourteen miles from Chaloo, within a stone 
inclosure, similar to ihe walls erected in the hilly parts of England, for 
