Across the Roof of ihc World. 



positively cut up our faces we sighted seven smaU heads. The 

 stalk promised to be a most successful one, as I approached 

 quite close, though tlie thick luists })revented my locating them 

 exactly. I waited for the mist and blinding snow to moderate a 

 little, lying out on a shale slope for two hours and a half. Then 

 the mist lifted a trifle to reveal the poli moving off on the opposite 

 side of the nullah. They had apparently moved of their own 

 account since the wind was blowing up hill and not in their 

 direction. I attempted to follow but the mists and dense clouds 

 rolling across the landscape effectually prevented my locating 

 them again after they had once gone over the ridge on the far 

 side of the nullah. For several hours I had been on the track cf 

 this herd, but the adverse weather conditions prevented my 

 reaping the reward of so much labour. Sorrowfully we wended 

 our w^ay down the hill and back to camp in the teeth of a gale of 

 wdnd and driven snow, arriving there at 5 o'clock, one mass of 

 icicles and frozen snow% and almost perished with the piercing 

 wind. 



In all the books I had read concerning the Pamirs I do not 

 know one that chronicles such weather as I experienced. The 

 Roof of the World has a reputation for cold and winds, and it 

 fully maintained that reputation whilst I was up there. 



I now decided to leave the Pamirs as I had had no luck, 

 there being yet much ground to cover before my programme of 

 sport would be completed and the far distant Trans-Siberian 

 Railway reached. Accordingly on the morning of the last day in 

 the Oprang I sent off my camp to the foot of the Hi Su Pass, 

 the nullah to which leads off from the right bank of the 

 Taghdumbash River, where I joined it late that night. I had 

 had a blank day in the Khunjerab, not even having the 

 melancholy satisfaction of seeing any poli, though, as usual, the 

 Kirghiz encamped below the entrance to the nullah had assured 

 me the place was full of them. The return journey to camp in 

 the Hi Su Pass proved a much harder task than I had 

 anticipated, for it necessitated the crossing of tw^o high inter- 



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