IV DANGEROUS GALLERIES ^9 



breakfast pressed on alone, camping for the night by my- 

 self at Mashung, 16 miles from our last halting-place. 

 A little beyond Hardas the Dras river is joined by the 

 Soru, which flows past Kargil. 



The road, since we crossed below Chanegund and 

 left the Leh road, had become distinctly worse. It was 

 narrower and rougher, and in many places was built out 

 over the river from the face of a precipice. These 

 galleries must have been trying for ponies. They were 

 made of logs of wood, projecting from holes and clefts in 

 the rock, and on these were laid flat broad stones to make 

 the pathway. These were any shape and placed anyhow, 

 consequently there were plenty of gaps between, and 

 how the ponies succeeded in getting over without some- 

 times putting their feet through I never could make out. 

 Of course there was no parapet or handrail to the 

 galleries, and in walking over one constantly saw, through 

 the gaps in the stones, the river foaming along more than 

 a hundred feet below. As we were done with the snow 

 when we reached Hardas, a riding pony had been hired 

 by Renton for his wife, who had her own saddle of 

 course with her. It was wonderful to see the ground 

 that animal went over without a trip or stumble. The 

 track led in many places across masses of boulders loosely 

 flung together, yet that pony climbed up one side and 

 down the other without makino^ a mistake, and Mrs. 

 Renton sat him with a confidence her husband and I 

 were far from sharing, in places where a fall would have 

 meant broken limbs, or worse. Constantly the track 

 was on the edge of a precipice, where a shy or a trip 

 would have involved certain death, but the little beast 



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