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The country through which we had been traveling for days had an original beauty. The wide plains were diversified by stretches of hilly country with low passes. We often had to wade through swift -running ice-cold brooks. While in Gartok, we had had occasional showers of hail, but now the weather was mainly fine and warm. By this time we all had thick beards, which helped to protect us against the sun. It was long since we had seen a glacier, but as we were approaching the tasam at Barka, a chain of glaciers gleaming in the sunshine came into view. The landscape was dominated by the 25,000-foot peak of Gurla Mandhata; less striking, but far more famous, was the sacred Mount Kailas, 3000 feet lower, which stands in majestic isolation apart from the Himalaya range. When we first caught sight of it, our Tibetans prostrated themselves and prayed. For Buddhists and Hindus, this mountain is the home of their gods, and the dearest wish of all the pious is to visit it as pilgrims once in their lives. The faithful often travel thousands of miles to reach it and spend years on the pilgrimage. During their journey they live on alms and hope that their reward will be a higher incarnation in a future life. Pilgrims' roads converge here from all points of the compass. At the places from which the first sight of the mountain can be obtained are set up heaps of stones, grown through the centuries to giant proportions, expressing the childlike piety of the pilgrims, each of whom, following ancient observance, adds fresh stones to the heaps. We, too, would have liked to travel around the mountain as the pilgrims do, but the unfriendly master of the caravansary at Barka prevented us by threatening to stop our future transport facilities unless we continued on our way.