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36o ADVENTURES IN TIRET.
was to the echo of his slow tramp, tramp through the rain,
and the mud that I at length dropped off to sleep.
The Lama called us at five o’clock, and we rose and started
at once. After a night such as we had just spent we all
felt cold and dispirited. We longed for the sun, but no sun
came ; the day remained dull and clouded, and the clouds
hung so low down that we kept expecting every moment
they would faU upon us. At frequent intervals they pelted
us with their contents, sweeping so low down that we felt
as it were almost suffocated. In a valley that we came to
we found the body of a sheep, with its load lying beside it,
namely, salt sewed up in a sack ; for in Tibet sheep are used
as well as yaks for beasts of burden. Upon reaching a
dominating pass in a range that was entirely covered with
snow, we found a large cairn of stones ; and from that
point we could trace a much-trodden road leading to-
wards the Tengri-nor, the lake that hes a httle north of
Lassa.
We pitched our tent again on a neck of land, about a
furlong wide, between two smah lakes. Then, after the
routine duties were performed the other two slept, whilst
I sat listening to the incessant patter of the rain. And at
eight o’clock, when we tethered the animals, the rain was
still descending as though all the spouts of the skies were
turned upon our devoted camp. But, then, it was the rainy
season in that country ; consequently, rain was the thing
to be expected, and we had no right to complain. For four
hours I kept watch, sitting sometimes in the tent-opening,
where I got a certain amount of shelter. But the mules’
pack-saddles might as well have been in a wash-tub, for the
water ran off them in streams, and whenever any of the
animals shook itself it made a perfect shower-bath of spray
all round it. Every now and then the horses would prick
their ears, and the dogs would growl suspiciously. At last
I let Malenki loose, that he might go and look for a bone.
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