We had not yet covered half the distance. The men exerted themselves as though they had to struggle through water 3 feet deep. Oftentimes I could not see through the clouds of salt, and nothing was visible of the ice beneath the sledge; it seemed as though we stood still while a foaming white flood poured down on us ready to swallow us up. I wondered whether we should ever reach the shore alive. There was very little life in me when we at length landed. The sledge was anchored to prevent the storm carrying it away, and then we climbed five terrace banks, one after another, to seek shelter behind the wall of a sheepfold erected on the sixth. Fortunately we found dry yak dung there in great abundance, and soon had a roaring fire, at which I had to sit a good hour before my limbs became at all supple again.
From camp No. 102 to the southern extremity of the lake the distance measured 3260 paces. There large herds were feeding, and six tents were set up at the mouth of the valley. About five o’clock the storm ceased as suddenly as it had sprung up, and it became strangely calm. When I took the meteorological observations at nine o’clock all my men were lying in a row, with their heads against the wall, their foreheads on the ground, and their legs drawn up, and as close to one another as sardines in a tin. They slept well; that I could tell from the tunes their nasal organs emitted.
There were shells of freshwater molluscs on the strand, and a quantity of goose feathers in a bank formed of decaying algæ. At present the water of the lake is not fit to drink, but the Ngangtse-tso was a freshwater lake formerly, that is, when it still discharged into one of its neighbours.
Wearied by our exertions on the previous day we slept till late, and then started off in a north-easterly direction towards the red porphyry mountains which jut out into the lake to the west of camp No. 99. We had no storm, but a brisk wind, and when it blew at our backs we glided like oil over the ice. I had a pole to steer with.
| 94. In a Snowstorm on the Ice of the Ngangtse-tso. |
Beyond the promontory we encamped in a deep hollow to obtain shelter from the wind. A shepherd was feeding his sheep on a slope and tried to make his escape, but Rabsang overtook him. He thought we were robbers. He had nothing to sell, for he was in the service of another man. But Rabsang requested him to bring his master to us. Meanwhile the others had arrived, except Ishe, who had fallen ill, and was left lying in the middle of the lake. Two of his comrades fetched him in the evening. All were tired out, and begged that they might make a short march on January 4, and that suited us well, for the shepherd’s master came and sold us a sheep, butter, sour milk, and a bag of tobacco. It was high time, for the provisions were almost consumed. The tobacco was quite a godsend to the men, for latterly they had been reduced to smoking yak dung! The old man gave much interesting information about the Ngangtse-tso, and told us that there were then fifty to sixty tents pitched in the valleys of the southern shore. So far all was well, but the day was not yet ended.
CHAPTER XIX
DRIVEN BACK