or statistics for the sake of geography or any
other science? We like to have a convenient excuse, and make a virtue
out of a hobby or an instinct. But why not own up that one travels for
the glamour of the thing? In previous wanderings my experience had
always been to leave a base with several different objectives in view,
and to take the route that proved most alluring when met by a choice of
roads--some old deserted city or ruined shrine, some lake or marshland
haunted by wild-fowl that have never heard the crack of a gun, or a
strip of desert where one must calculate how to get across with just
sufficient supplies and no margin. I like to drift to the magnet of
great watersheds, lofty mountain passes, frontiers where one emerges
among people entirely different in habit and belief from folk the other
side, but equally convinced that they are the only enlightened people on
earth. Often in India I had dreamed of the great inland waters of Tibet
and Mongolia, the haunts of myriads of duck and geese--Yamdok Tso,
Tengri Nor, Issik Kul, names of romance to the wild-fowler, to be
breathed with reverence and awe. I envied the great flights of mallard
and pochard winging northward in March and April to the unknown; and
here at last I was camping by the Yamdok Tso itself--with an army.

Yet I have digressed to grumble at the only means by which a sight of
these hidden waters was possible. When we passed in July, there were no
wild-fowl on the lake except the bar-headed geese and Brahminy duck. The
ruddy sheldrake, or Brahminy, is found all over Tibet, and will be
associated with the memory of nearly every march and camping-ground. It
is distinctly a Buddhist bird. From it is derived the title of the
established Church of the Lamas, the Abbots of which wear robes of ruddy
sheldrake colour, Gelug-pa.[15] In Burmah the Brahminy is sacred to
Buddhism as a symbol of devotion and fidelity, and it was figured on
Asoka's pillars in the same emblematical character.[16] The Brahminy is
generally found in pairs, and when one is shot the other will often
hover round till it falls a victim to conjugal love. In India the bird
is considered inedible, but we were glad of it in Tibet, and discovered
no trace of fishy flavour.

[15] Waddell, 'Lamaism in Tibet,' p. 200.

[16] _Ibid._, p. 409.

Early in April, when we passed the Bam Tso and Kala Tso we found the
lakes frequented by nearly all the common migratory Indian duck; and
again,