This is the country of wild camels. Wild camels live in herds of half a dozen head. The leader is a dark-brown stallion; the mares are lighter in colour. Their wool is so soft and fine that it is a pleasure to pass one's hand over it. Several herds or families are often seen grazing on the same spot. They look well-fed, and the two humps are firm and full of fat. In spring and summer they can go without water for eight days, in winter for two weeks. For innumerable generations they have known where to find the springs: the mothers take their young ones to them, and when the youngsters grow up they in their turn show the springs to their foals. They drink the water, however salt it may be, for they have no choice, but they do not stay long at the meadows by the springs, for their instinct tells them that where water is to be found there the danger is great that their enemies may also come to drink. Against danger they have no other protection than their sharply developed senses. They can scent men at a distance of twelve miles. They know the odour of a camping-ground long after the ashes have been swept away by the wind, and they avoid the spot. Tame camels passing through their country excite their suspicion; they do not smell like wild ones. They are shy and restless and do not remain long at one pasture, even if no danger threatens. In some districts they are so numerous that the traveller cannot march for two minutes without crossing a spoor. Where the tracks all converge towards a valley between two hills, they probably lead to a spring. On one occasion when our tame camels had not had water for eleven days, they were saved by following the tracks of their wild relations. IX IN THE FORBIDDEN LAND (1901-2, 1906-8) THE PLATEAU OF TIBET South of Eastern Turkestan lies the huge upheaval of the earth's crust which is called Tibet. Its other boundaries are: on the east, China proper; on the south, Burma, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and British India; on the west, Kashmir and Ladak. Political boundaries, however, are of little and only temporary importance. They seldom remain unchanged from century to century, for from the earliest times a nation as it increased in strength has always extended its domain at the expense of its neighbours. The earth's crust, on the other hand, remains unchanged--if we disregard the continual work performed by rain and streams, weather and wind, which tends to fill up the hollows with mud and sand, to cut the valleys ever deeper, and to diminish the mountain masses by weathering. However powerfully these forces may have acted, Tibet still remains the highest mountain land of the world.