looking at a distance--(to borrow M. Huc's graphic simile)--like
fat-bodied, long-legged spiders! Their general shape is hexagonal,
about twelve feet either way, and they are stretched over six short
posts, and encircled with a low stone wall, except in front. In one
of them I found a buxom girl, the image of good humour, making butter
and curd from yak-milk. The churns were of two kinds; one being an
oblong box of birch-bark, or close bamboo wicker-work, full of
branched rhododendron twigs, in which the cream is shaken: she
good-naturedly showed me the inside, which was frosted with
snow-white butter, and alive with maggots. The other churn was a
goat-skin, which was rolled about, and shaken by the four legs.
The butter is made into great squares, and packed in yak-hair cloths;
the curd is eaten either fresh, or dried and pulverised (when it is
called "Ts'cheuzip").

Except bamboo and copper milk-vessels, wooden ladles, tea-churn, and
pots, these tents contained no furniture but goat-skins and blankets,
to spread on the ground as a bed. The fire was made of sheep and
goats'-droppings, lighted with juniper-wood; above it hung tufts of
yaks'-hair, one for every animal lost during the season,* [The
Siberians hang tufts of horse-hair inside their houses from
superstitious motives (Ermann's "Siberia," i., 281).] by which means
a reckoning is kept. Although this girl had never before seen a
European, she seemed in no way discomposed at my visit, and gave me a
large slice of fresh curd.

Beyond this place (alt. 14,500 feet), the valley runs up north-east,
becoming very stony and desolate, with green patches only by the
watercourses: at this place, however, thick fogs came on, and
obscured all view. At 15,000 feet, I passed a small glacier on the