All fell out as he foretold. We encamped beside the Hsing Hai, or "Starry Lakes," which, rising out of springs in the plain, form the beginnings of that mighty flood known many hundreds of miles farther east as China's Sorrow. Plain the country is called by courtesy only, for it stands at a level higher than the highest peaks of Great Britain, and can be conceived as a plain only by contrast with the great mountain ranges to north and south. Here we rested three days. To me, at least, the time was one of delight; it had long been my ambition to explore the source of the most lawless river in the world; my notebook was almost a fixture on my knee, and I reflected that if the expedition brought nothing else, it would at any rate enable me to offer the geographers a few hard facts in place of the mess of theory and surmise-at-a-distance that makes up our knowledge of this region. Poyning spent most of the three days asleep, while Philipson was busy with Lo Eng overhauling stores and looking for fresh bearers. The men of Kiai had only contracted to come this far, but partly by enhanced rewards and partly by a judicious blend of threat and blandishment Philipson prevailed on them to stay with us until relieved. The new company, of ten men, we raised at length from a wretched hamlet on the foothills southward of the lakes. They were _tagliks_ (hillmen) of indeterminate race and small prepossession, and they hadn't been with us long before they gave us ample reason to regret the sturdy Ssuchuanese whose place they had taken. At dawn on the fourth day we struck out westward again, at the best pace we could make. Speed was vital, in fact, for we should soon be at heights where the "hot" weather nights are arctic and winter allows nothing human to live. It was Philipson's purpose to hold on this course until we cut across the route of his former journey, then to work by means of his maps to the _obo_ among the mountains. Before we had travelled many days the country was rising sharply again, its aspect changing from hour to hour. The scattered tamarisks of the plateau were left far behind, now nothing grew to soften the staring nakedness of red sandstone and green slate but here and there a patch of wiry, bleached grass, out of which the ponies could get but a meagre supplement to the limited fodder we carried. Now and again we sighted the beautiful yellow-brown wild ass, sometimes the fleeting form of some type of antelope, while at night we were glad of our camp fire not only for its warmth, but also for the protection it gave us against the wolves we heard howling hungrily around us. Gradually, however, as we drew higher and higher, even these signs of life dropped out of the vast desolation, and we saw nothing but an occasional herd of yak, the wild bull of Tibet.