TSEKOU TO KHAMTI 



in time to see the sticks go down with a crash into the foaming 

 water. However, we saved our half-drowned comrades farther 

 down. What with swarms of virulent mosquitoes to harass our 

 rest at night, and the severe toil undergone by day, we were 

 having a fairly hard time of it. Luckily the weather at this 

 stage was beautiful, just like spring in France. Our chief 

 disquietude was on the score of food ; and now we had to 

 share some of our scanty stock with departing relays of Kioutse 

 bearers, who by the terms of agreement should have victualled 

 themselves. 



I do not know but that we reached the acme of cumulative 

 obstruction at this period. Up to the present we had over- 

 come many a spell of choice obstacles. They had not exhausted 

 the vagaries of nature. Indeed they might be looked upon 

 rather as the occasional rockets of the entertainment, and this 

 as the fciL d'ai'tijices. Jigged points, slippery surface, crumbling- 

 brinks, creepers that tripped, worm - eaten trunks up which to 

 swarm, almost vertical ladders to climb, formed of wooden pickets 

 driven into the face of overhanging bluffs, often hauled by sheer 

 strength of a couple of men and liana drag-ropes over boulders. 

 We struggled on because we had to, and sat down abruptly on 

 the other side, to marvel how the deuce we got there. Let 

 any who want good training for calf and biceps come here. A 

 mile or two in a day was sometimes all we could do, and at this 

 rate we began to despair of seeing India in 1896. 



Camped on the 19th (October) beside a curious rock. It 

 was of granite, and 20 feet high. Outside it looked very 

 ordinary, but, on descending to its base, an aperture was dis- 

 covered leading into a circular chamber, pierced with two windows 



like eyes. One could imagine oneself inside a colossal head 



279 



