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20
EAST ASIA.
plateau between the Oxus and Tarim basins. The Tatar tribes, collectively known
as Hor or Khor, dwell in the western and southern districts. Elsewhere live the
Sok, or Mongolian nomads, who have named all nearly
the lakes and mountains m
'
North-east Tibet. They mostly practise
Shamanistic rites, although the
collective name of all these tribes is Khash-len, or "Mohammedans," whence,
probably, the term Khachi applied to the whole region. From the two principal
the name of Hor-Sok.
groups of tribes settled in it, the country is also known by
jig.
5. LAKE DANGRA-YUM AND TAROOT MOUNTAINS.
Scale 1 : 2,000,000.
- 30 Miles.
Of the numerous lakes scattered over the Khachi plateau, those of Namur, Ike
Namur, and Bakha Namur are the largest traced on the Chinese maps. The
waters or partly flooded tracts in this vast lacustrine basin would seem to stretch
south-west and north-east for over 120 miles, and we now know that the plateau is
largely occupied by a chain of lacustrine basins running north-west and south-east,
parallel with the depression watered by the Tsangbo. In 1874 the pundit Nain
Singh visited many of these lakes, several of which are merely the remains of
formerly far more extensive basins. Some have even been reduced to muddy
meres, covered with a crystalline incrustation, which is broken up by the salt