CROSS THE THAOTA-LA 173 



kind. Thus a hunt of five days was an utter faihire : not 

 a ram ^ood enouQ;h to follow had been seen, nor a shot 

 fired. For the benefit of those who may follow me, I 

 here put on record that in Ladakh (1) the wind is lord 

 paramount; (2) tliat the only beautiful thing in the 

 country is the sky ; and (3) that everything lools near, 

 but is very distant. This was the outcome of my experi- 

 ences, and it relieves my mind to say so. 



The things left behind in the Phia-lung having arrived, 

 we made a start next morning, and, skirting the lake shore, 

 proceeded to the Thaota-la (17,000 feet). Sarap had 

 dismal stories about the huti (plant) on this pass, the smell 

 of which takes away the traveller's breath. I asked him 

 to procure me a specimen of it, but he could find none ; 

 neither did anyone suffer from the rarefaction of the air. 

 Sanip had come out in his true colours within the last few 

 days ; he was a cunning malingerer, a first-class bully, and 

 a monumental liar. The ascent of this pass is nothing to 

 speak of from the lake side, but the descent of the other 

 (Shiishal) side is considerable. In the route map of the 

 Himalayas, published by the Great Trigonometrical Survey, 

 the pass is shown on the south-west of the Mirpa-tso ; 

 its real position is just in the opposite direction, that is, 

 to the north of the lake. As we went down to the plain 

 below, I met a gentleman coming up in my direction ; he 

 was going up the nala leading to the Dece-la (pass), the 

 very ground over which I had just hunted. He had come 

 from Simla via Kashmir and Leh, had been to the Chang- 

 chen-mo valley, and was now on his way back. He had 

 passed through the Phia-lung in May, and had bagged five 

 Ovis ammon in the valleys I had found so empty ! Three 

 of the heads were thirty-eight, forty, and forty-two inches. 

 He had left eight rams behind, and was now going to look 

 them up. When I told him my experience, he seemed 



