Across the Roof of the World. 



walls were so narrow that at their tops one could almost have 

 jumped across the intervening space. Clearing this defile we 

 passed into a grassy depression shut in by high mountains. 



In front of us stretched patches of grass with here and there 

 picturesque clumps of fir and pine. From these slopes the 

 mountains rose on either hand, their lower reaches dotted with 

 bush and flower, the green sward beneath giving the scene 

 a pleasing aspect. High up in this mountain retreat and at 

 the foot of the slope leading to the Kara Dawan, 1 found two 

 mud-built huts, the temporary home of shepherds who retire to 

 the uplands with their flocks during the summer. On the grassy 

 heights around, herds of yaks and goats were grazing, taking full 

 advantage of the ample pasturage stretching away in every 

 direction. Whilst waiting for the kit to arrive I conversed with 

 the hardy shepherds who told me they had never before seen a 

 white man in their valley, and wondered what could have induced 

 me to undergo so much in the attempt to penetrate these 

 mountain fastnesses. Game, they said, was to be found here 

 in the shape of burhel, or blue mountain sheep, as also the Ram 

 Chikor. Of the latter there were indeed any number but far 

 too wary to admit of approach. 



These people provided me with milk and firewood, and clean d 

 a space for the tent. They considered I should experience no 

 difficulty on the morrow in crossing the Kara Dawan, some 

 1,500 feet above us. As it was then clear weather I did not 

 myself anticipate any difficulty, though in the mountains 

 changes in the weather occur with remarkable rapidity, a 

 briUiantly fine day often developing quickly into a sky black 

 with clouds bringing snow and wind in their wake, the latter 

 always the danger most to be dreaded. 



The last of the yaks came in at 8.15 p.m. and Piro turned an 

 old disused stone hut, that was half underground, into a kitchen, 

 where he proceeded to light a fire, a desperately smoky affair, 

 but Piro and Giyani were used to smoke and breathed it with as 

 much joy as a prima donna taking lavender. 



