278 A SNOWY WASTE. 



where the ground was completely covered with new- 

 fallen snow, off which the glare was almost intolerable. 

 For several miles our way led gently upward through a 

 narrow glen, which wound along between rolling rounded 

 hills. The crisp snow, that at first merely crunched under 

 our feet, became deeper and more laborious to trudge 

 through as we gradually ascended. Not a vestige of any 

 living thing was visible in this white solitude, save here 

 and there a tailless kind of rat, 1 that, scared at our 

 approach, would dart away over the snow, and, with a 

 shrill eerie chirp, suddenly vanish ; and one little bird, 

 something like a robin, that followed us for a long way, 

 flitting and hopping from stone to stone in the ice-bound 

 brook beside us, as if courting our companionship. So 

 profound and deathlike was the solemn hush that brooded 

 over mother earth as she lay wrapped in her snowy shroud, 

 that one was almost startled at the slight rustling noise 

 caused by the slipping of melted snow from off some neigh- 

 bouring rock ; for, in the still frozen air of that high silent 

 region, fancy almost led one to imagine the sound resembled 

 the mysterious whisperings of invisible beings whose sanc- 

 tuary we were invading. Even on emerging from this dis- 

 mal glen upon more open ground, nothing met the weary 

 aching eye but a vast lone wilderness of white undulating 

 hills, and, more distant, domes arid pyramids of snow. At 

 last we reached the culminating point, and began to descend, 



1 Colonel E. Smyth, an excellent authority on Himalayan fauna, considers 

 this little animal, which is about the size of an ordinary rat, and of a dirty 

 white or light fawn colour, to be a kind of rabbit. He says they are inquisi- 

 tive little creatures, and by no means addicted to shyness, as the following 

 experience of his concerning them will show : 



"I was once resting myself on a cairn at the top of the Niti pass. Every- 

 where around the ground was covered with snow, except on this cairn. One 

 or two of these little things soon appeared from among the stones ; and as I 

 sat perfectly still to watch them, they came up to me and began nibbling at 

 my boots." 



The Niti pass, I may remark, is nearly 17,000 feet high, and well above the 

 limit of any visible sort of vegetation. 



