a herd of eight kyang, who are pretty sure heralds that there is good grass somewhere in the neighbourhood. They appeared unable to understand what we were, and allowed us to come within a hundred yards of them. After making an easy ascent, we saw a few miles off on our left hand the village of Numa, conspicuously seated on a rock, quite an important place with its numerous ponies and yak, and plentiful supplies. We loaded up the yak first, to send them on ahead of the ponies, for they won't travel as fast, especially in the middle of the day. It was a sharpish morning.
After going some ten miles the Indus became broad, resembling a lake, and about here pigeons were fairly plentiful. We agreed that we could never afford to waste a single cartridge so early on our journey, and decided to economise by endeavouring to make every shot do double execution. A chance quickly presented itself. There were two pigeons close together on the ground. "Fire away," I cried, "now's our time." "I really couldn't," said Malcolm, "they will be blown to pieces." "Never mind that," was my encouraging reply, "we shall be able to collect the bits." Immediately afterwards, off went both the barrels, and terrible to state, off went both birds too, safe and sound, only a little bit startled.
Seven miles further on we bade farewell to the river, which flowed away to the right, while our road branched off to the left, taking us to the black tents of some nomads. Where there are nomads, good grass will also be found for the grazing of their large flocks of sheep. We spent the night close to one of their encampments, and found them pleasant and hospitable enough, receiving from them dried apricots, nuts, butter, and milk. These nomads, too, have a knack of always finding a sheltered nook with a flowing stream. Although we were on that night over 14,000 feet high, we did not feel the cold at all, doubtless because we were well protected on all sides from any wind.
After leaving these people on the 10th May, we crossed over an easy pass, and then descended to more black tents, always finding the nomads civil and friendly. A little before noon we reached Shushal, the final starting-point of our expedition. Shushal lies back against the hills, five miles or so from the Pangong Lake, which is not even in sight. In the serai we found Shahzad Mir, who thus far had brought our caravan without an accident. Some of the muleteers were there, too, while the remainder were watching over the mules and ponies out grazing in an adjacent and well-watered valley.
| Showing Stages from Leh to Shushal. | |||
| Miles. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Leh to Tickse | 9 | ||
| Leh to Chemre | 9 | ½ | |
| Leh to Egu | 12 | ½ | |
| Leh to Upchi | 17 | ½ | on other side. |
| Leh to Sherwos | 23 | ½ | on other side. |
| Leh to Lickse | 31 | on other side. | |
| Leh to Herma | 38 | ½ | on other side. |
| Leh to Cunjian | 44 | ½ | on other side. |
| Leh to Gya | 62 | on other side. | |
| Leh to Kera | 69 | on other bank. | |
| Leh to Yakiki | 70 | on other bank. | |
| Leh to Ni | 76 | on other bank. | |
| Leh to Keisir | 79 | on other bank. | |
| Leh to Chumatang | 87 | on other bank. | |
| Leh to Maie | 99 | ½ | on other bank. |
| Leh to Numa | 112 | ½ | on other bank. |
| Leh to Ralma | 135 | ½ | Champa encampment. |
| Leh to Donlung | 138 | ½ | Champa encampment. |
| Leh to Shushal | 156 | ½ | Champa encampment. |
The first thing for us to find out was the shortest and best way over the frontier. We learnt that the ordinary route over the Marsemik La into Chang Chenmo was closed by snow, and would not be open for at least another month and a half. With the exception of this road and another one that went to Rudok, nobody knew of any other, or more correctly speaking, would own that there was another road. Rudok lies at the south-east corner of the Pangong Lake, and we knew that at Rudok a large Tibetan guard was maintained, who jealously guarded the main road to Lhassa, under the condition that should they allow any foreigners to pass that way, they would have to pay for the negligence with the loss of their heads. This year, too, they were more than ever prepared to oppose any attempt at crossing the frontier in that direction. This we considered due to the fact that only the previous year the Littledales, in their famous expedition, had camped for some days within fifty miles of the capital. To dream of taking an easier road to Rudok, and crossing the frontier at that point, was soon dismissed from our minds. Looking at a map of the country, the Pangong Lake appears to consist of two lakes joined together by a narrow strip of water, about half-way on the road to Rudok. We saw no reason why we should not be able to find a crossing over this stream, thence on to a village called Pal, and thus avoid all encounter with the Rudok men. All the headmen and any other men of Shushal who had travelled at any time in that direction were summoned to our presence and questioned about this road to Pal. For some time all vowed they had never heard of a place called Pal, but seeing that we were bent upon going there at all costs, they finally agreed that they had heard of the spot, but that it was impossible for us to get there, for the water that joined the two lakes was far too deep to ever think of crossing. Unwilling to believe any of their statements at all, we dismissed our servant Esau with a companion to ride out to this water, some twenty miles away, and find out whether it was fordable or not.
Whilst waiting for this information we laid in our stock of grain for the trip, buying it at thirty-two pounds for a rupee, and tied it up into coarse sacking, which we had made into suleetahs. We also packed our bhoussa into a smaller compass, and doctored up the few backs of the animals that had been touched up during the march from Leh; in fact, saw after every little detail we could think of.
That