402 WELCOME ASSISTANCE. 



informed me that there was still some " mooskhil " (difficulty) 

 below us. Moveover, I had casually discovered that we 

 were in the very gully down which the avalanche of rocks 

 and stones had fallen two nights before. I was just beginning 

 to realise the disagreeable probability of our having to pass a 

 cold gruesome night in an upright position on some narrow 

 ledge of rock, when, to my infinite relief of mind, I heard 

 voices below, which were joyously replied to, and ere long the 

 welcome glimmer of a light appeared dimly struggling up 

 through the fog. Our two markers, who were Tolma men, 

 after picking up the musk-deer I had killed in the morning, 

 had returned to our bivouac by the lower route, and knowing 

 the difficulties of the upper one, which they thought it prob- 

 able Ganna, to save time, would take up the gully, had, on its 

 growing dark, started to meet us, accompanied by my Goorkha 

 servant carrying a lantern. Another half-hour of very tick- 

 lish work took us down to the tent, after a direct descent of 

 several thousand feet, a great part of which might, under the 

 circumstances, have fairly been termed rather perilous. 



My time being then limited, I was reluctantly obliged next 

 day to quit this excellent though to me unlucky bit of tahr- 

 ground, by the same difficult way we had got at it. But let 

 us now resume our present trip, and in another chapter try 

 a turn at the burrell for a change. 



