Green schists form small ledges and strips on the otherwise soft ground, so that at a distance the land seems striped with black. Here and there veins of quartz crop out. Reddish-purple hills appear on the western horizon, and the country becomes more uneven. After a while we pass the sheep driven by the men in the wake of the caravan. They travel very slowly, grazing as they go; we have still 18 left. To-day the water is a difficulty. Some is found by digging at a depth of a foot, but it is briny. The day’s march is therefore longer than usual, 12 miles, but then we come to a spring.
On the eve of a day of rest we feel as though it were Saturday evening and there were no school next day. We intended to spend October 9 in camp No. 34; I had not given a day’s rest for 17 days. All were delighted, and the Ladakis, in anticipation of the day of rest, arranged an al fresco feast round a great camp-fire. The refreshments were the same as usual: tea in wooden bowls, parched meal, and roasted antelope meat—spirituous liquors of any kind were prohibited in our caravan. But, nevertheless, the men were in a right jovial mood; they danced round the fire, and sang a lively song with a chorus culminating in barbaric, shrill-sounding laughter. They rejoiced that they had proceeded so far and still possessed sufficient power of resistance to undergo severe hardships. We have travelled 331 miles from the Karakorum, and there are 400 more to the Dangra-yum-tso. But we are nearer the lake than we are to Leh, and so have really more than half the journey behind us.
After 41 degrees of frost in the night, October 10 dawned with brilliant weather, sunny and calm. Horse No. 3 was the twenty-sixth martyr of the caravan; he lay dead on the field. We passed another which was reduced to a skeleton and never reached the camp. We travelled east-south-east, and had now to leave the longitudinal valley through which Wellby had traversed the whole of north Tibet. A small hollow in the ground was crossed, and the camp was pitched among the hills on its south side. The brown puppy had behaved so disgracefully that she had to lie outside as a punishment. She howled and whined piteously, but slept after she had been covered with a frieze rug. Next day she had to travel with the mules to her shame. In the night another horse died.
Red and yellowish-grey hills begirt the way, which led up in three hours to a small flat saddle, whence the view eastwards seemed boundless. Had it been our intention to proceed farther in this direction we should have encountered no difficulties in the nature of the ground for many days to come, but my unalterable goal was the Dangra-yum-tso, and therefore we must direct our course south-eastwards. There a dark chain with an irregular, toothed crest soon came into view. Between its summits were seen deeply-cut saddle-formed gaps; but, to our chagrin, they were more difficult to surmount than they appeared, and the slightest rise in the ground was felt by our caravan in its prostrate condition.
The ground was all honeycombed with the holes of the abominable field-mice, but the holes were not so treacherous now, for the soil was frozen, and held firm when we rode over the subterranean catacombs connected by a network of passages.
Again we mounted a small swell in the ground (17,234 feet). We saw before us a dark point in the track of the caravan; it was a dead mule, which slept his last sleep with wide-open eyes beside his pack-saddle. Behind a hill we surprised a large, handsome fox, which made off in a great hurry as we drew near. But he could not refrain from frequently turning round and staring at us; he had probably never seen a human being before.
At camp No. 36 there was not a drop of water, but we were not able to travel further. We had with us two goat’s leather bottles filled with ice which sufficed for our tea; but the animals had to go without water. However, we could not complain; it was the first time since Leh that we had had no water.
An unusual sight greeted us on the morning of October 12; the whole country was covered with snow. But scarcely had the sun mounted up, when the snow melted and the ground was dry. The caravan set out early for the sake of the thirsty animals. Now we kept on a south-easterly course, leaving out of the range of our vision the lake discovered by Rawling, and named “Lake Markham” after the former distinguished President of the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Again we pass a horse with its throat cut; it is reddish-brown, and contrasts strongly with the grey, sandy soil. The eyes have already been picked out by the six ravens which sit like black ghouls round the fallen beast and hold a wake. A little farther something suspicious again appears in the track of the caravan—it is the sixth mule. He has collapsed on the march and has not to be killed; he is still soft and warm, and his eyes have not lost their brightness, but the ravens will soon be here, for they follow the caravan like dolphins in the wake of a vessel. For every animal that falls there is a horse-cloth to spare for his comrades. They will need it when the severe cold of winter comes. The two victims to-day have long been released from duty, but they had to follow on till they died, for there was always a hope that they would recover—a vain one, indeed.