FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



The two following days were employed in surmounting a crest 

 of 10,725 feet. From here our new Loutse carriers sent back four 

 stalwart wenches, who had helped their relatives with their loads up 

 the ascent. I secured a garter, — " honi soit," — and found its 

 measurement to be 19 inches below the knee. 



Then more up hill and down dale, damp underfoot but bright 

 overhead. The thick bamboo brake which clothed the south- 

 west sides of the hills did its utmost to retard our advance. Not 

 content with striking us in the face, the canes lay low and 

 tripped us when we stooped, and the mildest of our adversaries 

 poured a few drops of water down our necks or relieved us of 

 our head - gear. When we exchanged this vegetation, it was for 

 barer heights, among which often gleamed little grey -blue lochs; 

 a scenery not unlike some parts of the Pyrenees. 



After a strenuous climb up a dry watercourse, we emerged 

 upon the col. This pass over the mountains has a terrible 

 reputation in snow. Natives hurry over it ; song and gunshot 

 are unheard under the great dread inspired by its solitude and 

 many victims. And in truth, human skulls and shin-bones, a 

 porringer, a fragment of a pipe, bore dreary testimony to the 

 fate of unfortunate wayfarers overtaken by the cold. Our little 

 band pressed on in silence among the sombre scattered rocks. It 

 took several hours along the ridges before we ensconced our- 

 selves for the night in the dry brushwood beneath a sheltering 

 mound. 



Whilst the men were preparing the bivouac, I could not 

 resist the desire to climb a neighbouring eminence, on the brow 

 of which I found myself the centre of a vast jaanorama of extra- 

 ordinary grandeur. 



The mist which had wrapped us during the last stage of our 



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