CHAPTER III 



MARCH 29-31 SHITKURI TO DRAS 



Grass shoes — Carriage of bedding — Sonamerg — Coloured spectacles — 

 Baltal — Mr. and Mrs. Renton — The rest-house — The cooHe's room — 

 Discomfort — Jebb's snow bHndness — Early start — Crossing the Zogi 

 La — Machahoi — Mataiyun — Pandras— Dras rest-house. 



Long before daylight on the morning of the 29th of March 

 I was awakened by cocks crowing apparently in the room, 

 and was unable to understand it, till the owner of the 

 establishment appeared about 5 a.m., and let out a troop of 

 fowls from a cupboard beside the grass on which J ebb had 

 been sleeping ! The window was then opened, and we 

 got some breakfast, and as the whole of that day's 

 tramp was to be over snow, we rubbed our faces with 

 vinolia cream and put on grass shoes. 



No one who has not tried this very peculiar form of 

 foot-gear would have any idea how comfortable it is, how 

 warm it keeps the feet in snow, and what a foothold it gives 

 one on everything but mud. The term grass shoe is some- 

 thing of a misnomer, for the material of which it is made 

 is not grass, and the article itself is not a shoe, but a 

 sandal. Rice straw twisted into ropes is the material, 

 the ropes being plaited so as to form a sole about half 



