and the sun had not set
when we planted our tent within a hundred paces of the waters of the
great Lake.

[Picture: Leaf of the Tree of Ten Thousand Images]

[Picture: The Blue Sea]

CHAPTER IV.

Aspect of the Koukou-Noor--Tribes of Kolos--Chronicle of the Origin of
the Blue Sea--Description and March of the Great Caravan--Passage of the
Pouhain Gol--Adventures of the Altere-Lama--Character of our
pro-cameleer--Mongols of Tsaidam--Pestilential Vapours of the
Bourhan-Bota--Ascent of the Chuga and Bayen-Kharat mountains--Wild
Cattle--Wild Mules--Men and Animals killed with the Cold--Encounter with
Brigands--Plateau of Tant-La--Hot Springs--Conflagration in the
Desert--Village of Na-Ptchu--Sale of Camels, and Hiring of Long-tailed
Oxen--Young Chaberon of the Kingdom of Khartchin--Cultivated Plains of
Pampou--Mountain of the Remission of Sins--Arrival at Lha-Ssa.

The Blue Lake, in Mongol Koukou-Noor, in Thibetian Tsot-Ngon-Po, was
anciently called by the Chinese Si-Hai (Western Sea); they now call it
Tsing-Hai (Blue Sea). This immense reservoir of water, which is more
than a hundred leagues in circumference, seems, in fact, to merit the
title of sea, rather than merely that of lake. To say nothing of its
vast extent, it is to be remarked that its waters are bitter and salt,
like those of the ocean, and undergo, in a similar manner, flux and
reflux. The marine odour which they exhale is smelt at a great distance,
far into the desert.

Towards the western portion of the Blue Sea there is a small island,
rocky and bare, inhabited by twenty contemplative Lamas, who have built
thereon a Buddhist temple, and some modest habitations, wherein they pass
their lives, in tranquil retirement, far from the distracting
disquietudes of the world. No one can go and visit them, for, throughout
the entire extent of the lake, there is not a single boat of any kind to
be seen; at all events we saw none, and the Mongols told us that among
their tribes no one ever thought of occupying himself in any way or
degree with navigation. In the winter, indeed, at the time of the more
intense cold, the water is frozen solidly enough to enable the shepherds
around to repair in pilgrimage to the Lamasery. They bear to the
contemplative Lamas their modest offerings of butter, tea, and tsamba,
and receive in exchange, benedictions and prayers for good pasturage and
prosperous flocks.

The tribes o