454 BHOTIA WHISKY. 



presented with a token of goodwill from the Jongpen, in the 

 shape of some more yaks' tails, and two round lumps of 

 butter sewn up in raw sheep's-hide as tight and hard as a 

 cricket-ball. Puddoo told me that yak-milk butter thus 

 prepared keeps good for a very long time in the dry cold 

 climate of Tibet, and that these balls were probably more 

 than a year old. Whatever was their age, the butter they 

 contained was tolerably palatable. 



The rain had now become sleet, and the icy wind blowing 

 down off the snow-fields had increased to a gale, which made 

 pitching the tents, with our hands benumbed with cold, a 

 rather trying job. As the scant amount of grass-root fuel 

 we could collect was wet, and refused to emit anything but 

 smoke, I served out grog all round to my shivering com- 

 panions, and after a hastily despatched meal, turned in under 

 my blankets to try and keep warm. In the morning there 

 were two inches of snow on the tents, it was still snowing, 

 and the pass was enveloped in mist. About eleven o'clock 

 the sun shone forth again, so we commenced the ascent. 

 The jooboos had a rough time of it ploughing up through 

 the fresh-fallen snow, which was also most trying to our 

 eyes. On the summit of the pass we met the men and 

 jooboos returning from Niti with the supplies. A leathern 

 flask of native spirit they had brought with them was pro- 

 duced and freely imbibed from by my Bhotia followers, who 

 had not had a big drink for a month. The liquor was weak 

 mawkish-tasted stuff like bad whisky. It was potent enough, 

 however, to make Puddoo very drunk, so I left him to the 

 tender mercies of his companions. When he turned up 

 towards evening at the tents, he had got sufficiently sober 

 to look sheepish and ashamed of himself. And here I may 

 offer a bit of advice: never touch spirits on a cold high 

 pass, where their effects are as rapid as they are disagree- 

 able, and your head often aches badly enough there without 

 them. 



