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CHAPTER XX. 



IT might naturally be supposed that, after the experiences 

 of one visit to trans-Himalayan regions, nobody would be 

 in a hurry to return to those cold and desolate steppes. 

 It is not so, however, with such as are imbued with a taste 

 for wandering among Nature's wild and wonderful works. 

 Whatever trials and difficulties they may have undergone 

 are soon forgotten in their ardent longing for fresh adventure 

 or sport. Even the dangers to which the mountain-hunter 

 is so often exposed have a sort of alluring fascination about 

 them. I have no doubt many a Himalayan sportsman, 

 when traversing some terribly awkward bit, where a slip 

 might launch him into eternity, will, like myself, have 

 inwardly declared he would never again be enticed into 

 such a position, but only the very next day to find himself 

 perhaps in a worse one. 



Whether I am right or not in these surmises, I, at any 

 rate, found myself ere long preparing for another trip to the 

 wild land beyond the Himalayas. I shall not, however, ask 

 the reader to follow our old trail there, but offer to conduct 

 him in quite a different direction towards Nari-Khorsum, 

 better known as Hundes (pronounced Hoondace), the Chinese- 

 Tibetan territory situated across the high mountain-passes of 

 the provinces of Gurhwal and Kumaon. 



On the 20th of April I set out from Dehra Doon, and as 

 I did not expect the Niti ghat (pass), which I intended to 

 cross into Hundes, would be practicable before the beginning 



