NATURE'S AWFUL WORKS. 367 



after we got clear of the snow the track was almost worse 

 than if covered with it. As the Major remarked, "it was 

 macadamised with a vengeance." Such a howling wilderness 

 of sharp pinnacles of rock, and bare, rugged, perpendicular 

 cliffs, piled tier upon tier to an appalling height, as flanked 

 the stupendous canon down which our route lay, I never be- 

 held. 1 Some of the lofty fantastic-shaped summits bore a 

 striking resemblance to ruins of gigantic towers and turrets. 

 As the last rays of the sun, sinking behind the mountain- 

 tops, shed a parting gleam of golden radiance on these aerial 

 castles, rock-spires, and snow-crowned peaks, leaving the pro- 

 found depths of the abyss beneath wrapped in gloomy shade, 

 the effect was truly magnificent; scenery altogether so 

 sublimely wild, so awe-inspiring, and on so vast a scale as to 

 be quite beyond description, and almost beyond conception. 

 Dame Nature must indeed have been in a terrible mood when 

 she fashioned such awful works. 



When darkness compelled us to call a halt, we were still 

 several miles short of the usual camping-place ; and as there 

 was not a blade of grass in the vicinity, the poor yaks had to 

 fast another night. Fortunately we found sufficient fuel for 

 cooking purposes. 



A short but very stiff walk on the following morning 

 up through another wild gorge, brought us to our next 

 camping-ground, on the heights above which was the locality 

 for napoo, recommended by the sportsman we had met at 

 Karzok. Some of our Tartars were half-blind from the effects 

 of the previous day's snow on the pass, notwithstanding their 

 having improvised kind of goggles of wisps of black hair 

 pulled from their yaks' tails, and tied loosely over their eyes, 



1 The Grand Canon of the Yellowstone, in Wyoming, with its fantastic fea- 

 tures and profound depth, is the nearest approach to it in appearance I know, 

 though the American canon falls far short of it in magnitude and savage mag- 

 nificence of surroundings. And doubtless there are many other such gorges 

 in the higher Himalayas that quite equal, if they do not surpass, this one in 

 savage grandeur. 



