KASHMIR. 229 



puzzled me a little. It was very wet and very muddy, 

 when I suddenly came across three riders in black 

 European waterproofs, one of whom said to me 

 " Bones sore, Mushil 1 " After being for months up 

 in the Himaliya, one is unaccustomed to being 

 accosted in a European language ; and the matter 

 was complicated by the fact that my bones were sore 

 at the time, and most confoundedly so, from the 

 combined effect of that evening on the Omba La and 

 of a fall. Hence it was that I had fairly passed the 

 three curious riders before it at all occurred to my 

 mind that the salutation was "Bon soir, Monsieur." 

 They were doubtless Frenchified Turks, Avhom the 

 envoy had brought from Constantinople ; but they 

 had scarcely any ground to expect that their peculiar 

 French would be recognised, on the moment, in one 

 of the upper valleys of Kashmir. 



But I have not quite yet got into even the o\\t- 

 skirts of the Garden of Eden. The Zoji La had to 

 be crossed ; and though it is a very easy pass, and 

 set down by the Trigonometrical Survey as only 

 11,300 feet high, yet I have heard, and suspect, that 

 a mistake has been made there, and that nearly a 

 thousand feet might have been added to it. Let 

 Major Montgomerie's map be compared with the 

 sheets of the Trigonometrical Survey on which it 

 must be supposed to be based, and discrepancies will 

 be found. The Trigonometrical Survey has achieved 

 more than would allow of absolute accuracy in all 



