The dell, save towards the lake, was land*locked on
every side ; and Lake Chimorerel itself spread out its
blue expanse to the foot of very precipitous moun-
tains, forming a sharply defined and lofty boundary
to the valley of Speetee, through the windings of
which the route of the party lay.
On the 27th of September, their path skirted the
shore of the lake, the whole circumference of which
is embayed by mountains ; but hill- ward on its north-
eastern shore, the mass of elevated land rose very
abruptly from the water's edge, and entered the re-
gions of snow, which had an uniform margin of
19,000 feet. Neither this nor the other lake has anv
efflux, and were we less acquainted with the course
of the Sutlej, we should have here at least a veri-
fication of the fact, which Mr. Colebrooke, and re-
viewers, received with cautious credence, and even
actually discredited, of Mansarowar being entirely
land-locked, conceiving that in so elevated a region
evaporation was insufficient to carry off the supplies
derived from the neighbouring snow; thus forgetting,
or not knowing, that the absorbing power of the at-
mosphere is infinitely increased by its rarefaction,
and in tracts so singularly arid, that the traveller be-
holds ice permanent and unthawed in a temperature
of 50^, torrents frozen fast in their fall in a medium

EAST INDIES. M


162 BENGAL, MADRAS, AND BOMBAY.
often 20° wanner than the graduated freezing point.
