222 TEAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



sent with me by the Thanadar of Siirti. Keeping 

 the sharp boy Nurdass with me, I took the most 

 refractory of the men under my own charge, and 

 made Thooleyram and Silas Avith his gun look after 

 a small section in the rear. My servants saw as well 

 as I did the necessity for the most decided action, 

 and we soon reached the foot of the second range. 

 Here the man who had before nearly succeeded in 

 running away gave me some trouble by making a 

 similar attempt, and afterwards by lying down and 

 refusing to budge an inch further, so I had to show 

 him that such conduct might involve worse evils 

 than those of going on. I was not at all afraid of 

 their running away once I got them well over the 

 summit of this infernal second snowy range, because 

 from that point they could hardly have reached 

 Omba on empty stomachs ; so my great anxiety was 

 to get them over the brow of the range before dark, 

 so long as there was light enough for us to keep them 

 in hand. By various kinds of encouragement I man- 

 aged to push them up that lofty mountain at really 

 an astonishing rate, considering the ground they had 

 got over that day ; and when I saw men nagging 

 really from want of strength, I made them hold on 

 by our horses' tails, which, in making an ascent, is 

 very nearly as good as riding on the animal itself. 



The sun had disappeared, and the light on the 

 snoAv we were crossing had become pale, Avhen I got 

 my party up to the summit of this great mountain- 



