386 A NIGHT AT 18,000 FEET. 



pass once before, and that was many years ago, and in the 

 month of July, when the state of the snow was very different 

 to what it was now. He took us too much to the right, and 

 we were brought up by a frightful precipice. We spent half 

 an hour or so trying to find a way down, but night coming on, 

 we had to remain here without firewood, water, or food. My 

 thermometer at this time was at 12. It must have gone 

 down to zero during the night. We could not find room to 

 lie down. I was comfortable enough myself. I put on all 

 my spare clothes, and wrapped myself up in a postheen, 1 put 

 on my Canadian fur boots, leggings, &c., and gave up my 

 blankets to the Bhootiahs. I had a small flask of rum and 

 some cold meat and biscuits. The meat was frozen hard. I 

 did not feel the cold, and should have slept well but for the 

 anxiety I felt for the men with rne, who all suffered very 

 much. The cold affected them in different ways. Some had 

 a violent headache, others were sick all night. The night 

 was beautiful and quite cloudless, and the moon nearly at the 

 full. We looked straight down upon a regular sea of ice 

 3000 feet below us, at the foot of the precipice on the top of 

 which we were perched. There seemed to be nothing but 

 glacier as far as we could see, and the moonlight gave this 

 mer de glace the appearance of being perfectly level. We 

 were probably at an elevation of 18,000 feet, within 200 or 

 300 feet of the top of the pass, and on one side of us was that 

 peculiar-looking flat-topped mountain ' Goree Purbut,' so dis- 

 tinctly visible from Almora, Paori, and the plains. The top 

 of this mountain could not have been more than three miles 

 from us. We had to remain squatted here until 10 A.M., 

 when the sun made its appearance from behind * Goree Pur- 

 but.' The cold was so intense that we could not touch the 

 rocks with our hands. If the guide had not lost his way we 

 should have met with no difficulty. 



" We now used our own judgment. We saw where we had 



1 A long kind of leathern cloak lined with fur, made in Afghanistan. 



