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EAST ASIA.
15 to 24 miles. The pundit who visited it in 1872 took fourteen clays to traverse its
northern shore. It is of unknown depth, and an almost perennially cloudless sky is
mirrored in its clear waters, whence its Tatar name, Tengri-nor,
and Tibetan
Nam-tso, both meaning the "Heavenly Lake." Thousands of pilgrims yearly
face the difficulties of the route and the marauders of the district in order to visit
the convent of Dorkia, and the other monasteries on the headlands commanding
extensive vistas of its blue waters, and of the snowy peaks in the south and south-
east. In this " holy land " everything partakes of the marvellous. Here a rocky
gorge has been the work of a god ; elsewhere an earthen mound raised by the hand
of man has been suddenly rent asunder to afford an exit heavenwards to a lama
who died in a state of ecstasy. The very fossils of the rocks are sacred objects, and
are carried away as relics of one of the " three hundred and sixty mountains,"
or divinities in the suite of the principal deity, the snow-clad Ninjin-tang-la.
It was till recently supposed that the evaporation of the Tengri-nor about
balanced the amount discharged through its influents. But this is a mistake. The
traveller who explored it in 1872 did not perceive its outlet, which, like the lake
itself, was at the time covered with ice. This outlet escapes from the north-
west corner, and flows to the river which drains the Chargut-tso. In its neigh-
bourhood are some hot springs, and farther north the Bul-tso, or " Borax Lake,"
covers a space of some 24 square miles. The pilgrims, who here combine trade
with devotion, carry away loads of borax, which they sell in Lower Tibet, or
forward over the Himalayas. From the Bul-tso formerly came the borax known
as Venetian, because refined in that city.
THE EASTERN HIGHLANDS AND RIVERS.
These chemical efflorescences bear witness to the slight snow and rain fall on
the Khachi plateau. Yet immediately east of it begins that remarkable region
where the brooks and rivulets are collected from all quarters into mighty rivers.
This contrast is caused by the mountains skirting the plateau, which receive
moisture only on their slopes facing the south and south-east sea breezes. These
highlands are evidently divided into several groups, for the Chinese maps show
various streams flowing to the tributaries of the Indian Ocean, and to the Yang-
tze-kiang, and rising on the Khachi plateau. The highlands are divided by
erosive action into several distinct chains ; but the tableland itself is nearly
everywhere sufficiently elevated to cause a great difference of climate between the
two slopes. But we do not yet know whether the highlands belong to a single
border chain, separated at intervals by the upland river valleys, or form part of
distinct ranges at the eastern extremity of the plateau. Richthofen accepts the
first hypothesis, according to which a transverse orographic system connects the
mountains of South Tibet with the Kuen-lun. To this assumed chain he even
gives the name of Tang-la,* from a group of peaks rising south of the Tengri-nor.
Yet from what is known of the upper river courses, the intermediate chains would
The term la usually means mountain pass," but in East Tibet it is frequently applied to moun-
tains, and even to whole ranges.