THE UNFORDABLE IWAKA 233 



green of the jungle. There was an invigorating air 

 of mountains in the river as it came thundering over 

 the huge boulders in its bed, and now and again wc 

 even got a glimpse through the trees of the mountains 

 themselves, apparently not so very far distant 

 from us. 



Two days' scrambling up the valley brought us 

 to the rest of the party at the depot camp, and there we 

 learnt the very unwelcome news of a discovery, which 

 seemed likely to put an immediate end to our explora- 

 tions. The advanced party had climbed up a spur 

 to the west of the river and had seen that the Iwaka, 

 instead of flowing (as we imagined) from the North- 

 east by an apparently wide valley, actually flowed from 

 the North through a deep, and in some places pre- 

 cipitous gorge, which we could not possibly attempt 

 to traverse with our feeble cooUes in the short time 

 that remained to us. 



If we w^ere to advance at all, it was necessary for 

 us to go in a North-easterly direction, but there we seemed 

 to be completely cut off by the torrent of the Iwaka 

 River. Attempts were made both upstream and down- 

 stream to wade across, but nobody succeeded in doing 

 it, and no better luck attended those who tried to make 

 a bridge by felling a tree across the river, the bridge 

 was at once sw^ept away. As a last expedient a large 

 reward of money was offered to the first man who 

 should find a way across the river, and again they all 

 set out full of hope and armed with axes. The luck 

 fell to two of the Gurkhas, who cleverly felled a large 

 tree straight across the river. Had it fallen a few feet 



