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i88 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
There we encamped and thoroughly dried our wet belong-
ings. A week later our progress was stopped by a large
lake. Encamping on its northern shore, I set off on 22nd
August, with Kutchuk for my boatman, to row diagonally
across the lake towards a mountain-peak near its south-
east corner. Meanwhile, the caravan was to skirt round
the western end of the lake and along its southern shore,
until they came to the same mountain, where, at night-
fall, they were instructed to light a fire, which might serve
as a beacon for us in case we should still be out on the lake.
A more peculiar lake I have never seen : on the north
it was so shallow that we had to walk fully a mile and partly
carry, partly drag, the canvas skiff, before the water was
deep enough for her to float in. The bottom of the lake
was everywhere covered with a layer of salt as hard as
stone, the crystals of which stuck to our boot-soles. I had
brought with me a sounding-line some hundreds of fathoms
long, thinking that the new lake might be as deep as the
Kara-kul on the Pamirs ; but the greatest depth only
amounted to a paltry 7I feet, so that our graduated seven-
foot oar sufficed almost everywhere.
After passing a little bread-loaf-shaped island, we steered
straight for the mountain appointed for the rendezvous.
The weather was magnificent, not a cloud in the sky, which
was reflected with the greatest sharpness and clearness on
the surface of the lake. The tops of the encircling moun-
tains were, however, wreathed with numerous white fleecy
veils. The sun, a rare visitor in those regions, was quite
warm, and we rejoiced to see this seldom glimpse of
summer. Here there was not the buzz of a fly to be heard,
nor the gleam of a fin to be seen in the lake ; the water was
as lifeless as a chemical solution. Viewed through the pure
and rarefied atmosphere, the landscape presented itself as
something exceptionally light and evanescent. I can only
compare it to a bride in an " empire " robe of white and
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