were in, which led over an easy pass, from the summit of which we looked back over the Lanak La.
In spite of our extensive views, we could discover no route running in any direction whatever, and having come so far, we decided to give up all searching for routes and to find a way for ourselves, marching due east as much as possible, and, failing that, north rather than south. Quite naturally, therefore, we descended the other side of the pass just the same as any one else would have done, and then we found a range of mountains north of us, and another range south of us, compelling us to take to a rather narrow nullah which eventually debouched in the early afternoon into a broad valley some miles across, running in an easterly direction, and bounded north and south by ranges of snow-tipped hills. Thus the actual finding of our way was not such a difficult undertaking as one might have expected. We could see the valley stretching far away to the east, and calculated that we had some days of clear sailing before us.
We trotted on ahead in search of grass and water to halt by. Straight in front of us, we noticed what we took to be snow in the middle of the valley, but the nearer we came to it the farther off it appeared to be, and we were most anxious to reach that snow, for otherwise we saw no chance of finding any water. We finally concluded that it was a hopeless job to try and get there; and as the sun was setting, and a short distance in front of us we saw some antelope, we knew there must be some grass close by and probably some water too. Such proved to be the case; there was a small stretch of very short growth with two little pools of rain-water, as good a camping ground as we could have expected to find that night.
A strong wind was blowing from the south-west, enough to cut us in two, and as the skies clouded over pretty quickly, we had no chance of taking any observations. I really felt inwardly thankful that the clouds had come up so thick, for it is no joke observing stars with twenty-five degrees of frost and a keen wind. Unless the clouds absolutely obscure the view and one slips in between the blankets without attempting observations, one's conscience feels a prick of guilt.
Our mules and ponies must have suffered from the cold that evening, and seemed to find but little amusement in nibbling at the short grass. Throughout the night we heard some of them becoming entangled in the guy ropes of our tent in their endeavours to find some small amount of shelter from the blast. And it was a marvellous thing how the tent managed to stand at all.
Despite these and other divers annoyances, we both fell off to sleep till daybreak, when all seemed clothed in perfect stillness—the whole atmosphere was calm. It was difficult at first to collect our thoughts and to remember where we were and what had befallen us. Why was it we could hear no sign of man or beast? Something unusual must surely have happened. In another moment we were up and outside the tent; the wind had completely died away, and everything and everywhere was covered with a fresh layer of snow. The men were silent in their tents, some of our mules lay without moving, others stood with drooping heads, and, on counting their number, we found that several were missing. It was not very long before we found one of these latter; there he lay stretched out close to our own tent, as dead as dead could be. We felt sad for the poor brute, for little had we thought whilst we had been abusing him for fiddling with our guy ropes, that he had been actually dying from cold or from some other painful cause. We turned away from the corpse, and tried to forget our own selfishness.
At this moment the sun was just appearing and omened a fine and warm day, arousing us to the fact that the snow would soon melt, and if that happened, we should have no small difficulty in tracking the animals that had strayed. We at once turned out our men and sent some of them off on our stoutest ponies to search for the deserters.
This morning's disastrous work undoubtedly laid the seeds of many more deaths to come. As to our own riding ponies, which had been ridden by the muleteers in the search, so much was taken out of them that we were only able to ride them for a very few more days, and ever afterwards were solely dependent upon our own feet. The five delinquents were eventually found about five miles back in the nullah we had come from the previous day, but they were in so exhausted a condition that one of them could scarcely drag itself along, let alone take a few pounds' weight of luggage, in fact, he never reached another camp.
Even at this early stage there was no use blinding ourselves to the truth that there were a goodish number of the animals that could not possibly last out many more days. Had we been able to find good grass and water together, our best plan would have been to halt there for a few days; then, again, it must be remembered that during that period the men would be eating their rations all the same, and probably more, without making any onward progress at all.
It was almost noon before we were off, and by that time all the snow, excepting on the tops of the hills, had completely thawed, for the day was warm and pleasant. Again we fortunately had easy marching down the valley, and we went towards the patch of snow we had been so anxious to reach the previous day, but we never seemed to get there; the illusion was caused by vapour or steam rising up from the salt ground and hanging over it like a white sheet, and when we conjectured we were on the very spot, we could see nothing at all.
After fourteen miles we came to a fresh-water lake completely frozen over, having been seven hours over the march. Knowing how deceptive the distance is across such lakes at this great height, namely, just over 16,000 feet, we decided to halt where we were; besides, there was fairly good grass, and a bright moon for observations, but no water for the mules. The man, too, whom we had left behind to bring in the exhausted pony, had not turned up, and despite our discharging our guns pretty frequently, he never reached camp that night at all. In addition to all this, my own pony, which had made the march riderless, had some difficulty in struggling in. We here gave our beasts three bags of bhoussa, leaving us only thirteen more, and allowed them to graze till 8 o'clock the following morning. At that hour the sun had begun to thaw the lake, and on reaching the further side, after a most slippery walk, we found a small stream had just commenced to trickle, a great boon for our beasts.
That same evening, after marching over a stretch of undulating ground, with a certain amount of grass in some of the nullahs, frequented, too, by antelope and kyang, we came to a large salt-water lake. There was but poor grass around, but a stream of good fresh water. Ahead of us, on all sides of the lake, the land appeared absolutely barren and arid, possibly on the southern side there might have been a little hidden grass; but then, again, had we marched south, we did not know that we might not meet with another show of opposition, so stuck to our original plan of steering north when in doubt. We began at this early stage to recognise the superiority of the mules over the ponies, for three of the latter could only just crawl into camp at a late hour in a very weak condition.
Another snowstorm prevented us from making a fresh start before 11 o'clock, and as the snow had put a stop to the grazing, poor as it was, we prepared some bhoussa for our remaining thirty-five animals, yet only thirty-four came hurrying up for this much appreciated food. There stood the thirty-fifth, a few hundred yards off, gazing at the remainder, who had their noses hidden deep into the chopped straw. Poor brute! he could not reach the spot, his condition was so weak and impoverished; there he stood, resembling mostly a bag of bones, a grievous sight for us: for this was the very white pony who had been such a great friend of the black mule, and he had struggled hard for some days to keep up with the caravan. After he had been shot, we were glad to leave the spot to try and forget the sad event.
By reason of the late snowstorm, the going along the edge of the lake was heavy in the extreme, so much so that we lost a small black mule from exhaustion, the only advantage gained by this disaster being that fewer animals were left to eat up the grain. The land was barren and useless to a degree, with no chance of finding any fresh water or grass; the former difficulty was overcome by collecting some snow, and the latter by being extravagant with our bhoussa. The ground fell in terraces from the hills that rose up some distance from the lake, and was split up by several deep, narrow and harsh nullahs running into it; nor was there any sign of life, with the exception of an occasional startled hare.
Although there were twenty-four degrees of frost that night, yet at 6 o'clock in the morning we were eating our breakfast with comfort in the open, by the edge of the salt lake. There was not a single ripple on the dark blue water, whose colour was only rivalled by the magnificent sky, nor was there a sound excepting the murmurs that came from our own