SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 425 



away eastward, close above the great holy lake of Mansora- 

 war which latter, though invisible from the pass, I knew to 

 be quite that distance as the crow flies did not seem more 

 than half as far off. In vain do you here look for the 

 beautiful sunrise or sunset effects of more dense and humid 

 atmospheres, for the sun shines through the thin air of these 

 high Tibetan regions with the same garish-white glare when 

 on the horizon as when on the meridian. Perhaps I might have 

 viewed the prospect before me in a different light under more 

 agreeable circumstances, but the high wind that blew the 

 dry drifting snow off the neighbouring mountain-tops in long 

 pennon-like clouds chilled one to the very marrow, and I had 

 a dreadful headache to boot. 



The watershed here deserves notice. Speaking figuratively, 

 if, when standing beside the cairn on the pass, you throw a 

 snowball towards the west, it melts into a tributary of the 

 Ganges, and so into the Bay of Bengal. If you fling another 

 towards the east, it will melt into the Sutlej here flowing 

 almost northward beyond the pass be carried back by that 

 river westward through the Himalayan chain, and so find its 

 way eventually down the Indus into the Arabian Sea. 



After getting half -frozen whilst attempting to make a 

 hurried sketch, with my fingers so benumbed that I could 

 scarcely hold the pencil, it was almost a relief to be plodding 

 on again knee-deep through the snow, down towards where 

 we camped for the night, four or five miles farther on, after 

 a descent, for the most part over deep snow, of some 2000 

 feet. 



The cold here at night was terrible. All the wraps I 

 possessed failed to keep out the piercing wind, so we waited 

 until the rising sun warmed us up before we set out next day. 

 We only went four or five miles, chiefly along the stony bed of 

 the Sakchu a stream of snow-water, which had to be forded 

 several times to a spot where there was some grazing for the 

 poor jooboos, which had been fasting for two days. Here we 



