MARCH TO SORU 233 



make the foot of the pass himself in one day. The second 

 day will take him easily into Tanksc, and the third to 

 Pobrang, 



The road from Leh to Kashmir is a well-known line of 

 travel, and I take up my story at Shargul,. where I again 

 left the beaten track ; this place is the sixth march from 

 Leh. Yiikiib went on with the ponies and things by the 

 straight road to Srinagar, while I, with eight coolie-loads, 

 struck off to the left for Sorii at the head of the Wardwan 

 valley, where I intended to have some stag and bear 

 shooting before concluding my travels. My first march 

 was to the foot of a pass with no particular name — a 

 distance of about fifteen miles- — which took us ten hours 

 to get over ; the coolies carrying my loads were very slow, 

 and gave much trouble at each village we passed. Beyond 

 Shargul the traveller is in Baltistan, and the population 

 is chiefly Musalmdn. I saw only a few Bhots (Tibetans), 

 Lamas, and gonpas (monasteries) during the march. The 

 next day's march was a very stiff one indeed. I changed 

 the coolies for four baggage animals, and got along better. 

 We passed over the crest of the range between two peaks 

 marked on the map 18,026 feet and 18,653 feet; the 

 pass itself cannot be less than 17,000 feet — a very high 

 one for these parts. From this point I had a grand view 

 of snowy peaks to the north and north-east, beyond Nabra 

 and its big glaciers, but no snow was visible on the rocky, 

 broken mountains between me and the distant peaks. 

 This was the first really extensive view I had had of 

 Ladakh. The next descent was very long and trying 

 indeed — zig-zagging and doing the serpentine along a very 

 steep hillside all the way to the bottom of the valley — 

 the Phulung. We came to the first village, Labbaks, at 

 half-past two ; but my camping-place was Sanku, so we 

 trudged on in the heat. I was thirteen hours on the 



