An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

TIBET. 215Setting out, after an early breakfast, on Wednesday, the 17th ofSeptember, we continued for two or three miles, within sight of thestream which I have noticed, till it joined a broad lake, that extendedfarther than we could trace, being hemmed in by rocks, which obstructed our view.This lake, I am told, is held in high respect by the inhabitants ofBootan, whose superstitions lead them to consider the increase or decreaseof its waters, as portentous of good or evil to their nation.fancy it to be a favourite haunt of one of their chief deities.TheyThe road, after passing this defile, turned short to the rights roundthe skirts of a small village, and proceeded over an extensive plain,quite destitute of verdure, of an arid soil, and covered with smallstones. On quitting this, we turned round the point of a hill, andcame down upon another plain, white with the same sort of incrustation,which we had seen the day before.There was no water, nordid it appear that there ever had been any, on this plain; whence itshould seem, that this saline substance is sublimed from the earth, ar.dnot a separation from impregnated water. The salt, I believe, is calledby the chemists, natron, and by the natives of Hindostan, where itisfound in great abundance, sedgy mulli : it rises in an efflorescencefrom the dry plains, resembling a hoar frost. Some deer boundedacross our path.As we proceeded, several narrow prospects opened, of thesnowymountains to the south :not those we had formerly seen, but a continuation,I imagine, of the same range that borders on Bootan, andconstitutes its frontier. The brown heath, and russet-coloured rocks,