280 THE PARANG LA. 



height is about 18,600 feet, and it is seldom, if ever, open 

 before June, and generally becomes again impracticable to 

 cross about the beginning of October. On our arrival at 

 Leh in June, we found several Indian servants of some 

 travellers who had just come over this pass, laid up there 

 in a pitiable plight from frost-bite ; one of them had lost 

 many of his toes, and his companions were little better off. 



The evening previous to our crossing, we camped a short 

 distance below the foot of the glacier that extends down 

 almost from the summit of the pass for some four or five 

 miles on its northern side. Snow began to fall thickly just 

 before dark, and continued to do so, more or less, during the 

 night. In the morning the weather at first looked rather 

 promising, but the tents were frozen as stiff as boards, and 

 were so incrusted with hard snow that we had to delay our 

 departure until the sun, of which we only got an occasional 

 glimpse, should thaw them a little. After our breakfast, 

 which we managed to cook over a smoky little fire made of 

 the few remaining scraps of wet fuel which, with consider- 

 able difficulty, we had coaxed into burning, we loaded the 

 yaks and started just as it again began snowing more thickly 

 than ever. The limited supply of fuel we had brought up 

 with us was done, and the poor yaks had already been fast- 

 ing for two days or more ; besides this there was some fear, 

 if the snowstorm continued, that the pass might become 

 permanently closed for the winter : we therefore determined, 

 under any circumstances, to make an effort and push over it 

 at once into Spiti. 



For more than six weary hours did we toil up against the 

 almost blinding snow and piercing wind that chilled us to 

 the very marrow, although the distance to the summit was 

 only six or seven miles. It was truly wonderful to see the 

 way in which the yaks struggled through the deep snow, 

 and scrambled over places which were often difficult, and 

 sometimes dangerous to traverse. Nothing could have ex- 

 ceeded . the powers of endurance evinced by these animals, 



