On nearing the lakes the atmosphere seemed saturated with moisture. No sooner had the sun gone down than there was a heavy dew, which soaked our blankets and clothes. We were at 16,550 feet in a narrow, marshy creek in which we had descended precipitously from the last mountain range. From the summit of the range we had seen many columns of smoke rising from the neighborhood of the Devil's Lake. We judged that we must again proceed with great caution. We cooked our food. In the middle of the night, for greater safety, we shifted our camp in a north-easterly direction on the summit of the plateau. We continued our journey in the morning high above the magnificent blue sheet of the Devil's Lake with its pretty islands. "Sir, do you see that island?" exclaimed Nattoo, pointing at a barren rock in the lake. "On it," he continued, "lives a hermit Lama, a saintly man. He has been there alone for many years, and he is held in great veneration by the Tibetans. He exists almost entirely on fish and occasional swan's eggs. Only in winter, when the lake is frozen, is communication established with the shore, and supplies of _tsamba_ are brought to him. There are no boats on the Devil's Lake, nor any way of constructing rafts, owing to the absence of wood. The hermit sleeps in a cave, but generally comes out in the open to pray to Buddha." During the following night, when everything was still, a breeze blowing from the north conveyed to us, faint and indistinct, the broken howls of the hermit. "What is that?" I asked of the Shokas. "It is the hermit speaking to God. Every night he climbs to the summit of the rock, and from there addresses his prayers to Buddha the Great." "How is he clothed?" I inquired. "In skins." Late in the afternoon we had an amusing incident. We came to a creek in which were a number of men and women, hundreds of yaks and sheep, and some thirty ponies.