wheels in Tibet—-which follows the curve of the
beach. Above it, feathery green plants of wormwood,
transfixed by the dead brown bents of last year, crowd
downwards from the steep banks, on which sturdy
bushes of barberry and wholesome English dog-rose
flourish as well as the crowding weight of “ Traveller’s
joy ” allows. Over that again, in the clefts of the
flawed rocks or between the tussocks of the grassy
hill slopes, where the yaks and goats graze, spring
prickly poppies, sky-blue and purple, spikes of lemon-
yellow foxgloves, and primulas and oxlips of half a
dozen shades. Here and there is cultivation, and
wherever the stunted barley crop is sown, comes, too, a
sweeping carpet of forget-me-not, eighteen inches in
height, and blue with a virility and strength unknown
to the pale myosotis of English ditches. In the grass
flats of fine closely-cropped turf, which here and there
join the foreshore to the hills, is a jetsam of green, low-
growing lilies, as yet only starring the ground with
their flat leaves, but bearing aloft on their stalks a
promise of sturdy flowers to come. Opposite, across the
mile-wide strip of water, the steep, green-velveted hills of
the “ island ” rise out of their own reflections, chequered
here and there by the vivider green of cultivation or
the dull moving contrast of cloud shadows.
There is, perhaps, much excuse for the old belief
that the Yam-dok tso is indeed a ring of water, for
in the two wide places where the great circle is broken
the shaking stretch of black mud is even now more kin
to water than to land. It is fair enough to see, with its
wastes of green reeds and hummocks of primula-strewn
grass, but it is but a quagmire, across which it is dangerous
to walk, and impossible to lead a horse. A
hundred years ago it must have been shallows— a thousand
years ago, perhaps, the old level betrayed on
the hillsides to this day was awash. Forty feet added
to the present height of the water would change the
shape of the lake curiously indeed.
As it is, perhaps to Tibetan eyes the quagmires
The southern shores of the Yam-dok tso— from the Ta la : never before seen by a
white man.
that represent the retreating lake have their special
value too, for three miles of bog separated the orderly
tents of our camp at Nagartse from the thrice-holy
buildings of Samding convent, where the reincarnated
Dorje Phagmo, or pig-goddess, bears rule over one of
the most venerated foundations in the land. While
we were in the neighbourhood the buildings were de