230 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



its details ; but, considering the means at its com- 

 mand, it has done wonders. Still, though the Zoji 

 pass may be higher than it has been set down, yet it 

 seems almost child's-play to the traveller from Zans- 

 kar and the Omba La. Though it seemed to me 

 nothing after what I had gone through, yet this pass 

 must have a formidable appearance to travellers com- 

 ing upon it from below, judging from the following 

 description of it by Dr Henderson, the ornitholo- 

 gist of the first of Sir Thomas Forsyth's missions "to 

 Yarkand : " The road we had ascended was in many 

 places rather trying to the nerves, being very steep, 

 and sometimes consisting merely of a platform of 

 brushwood attached to the face of the precipice. This 

 road, owing to its steepness, is quite impassable for 

 baggage animals after a fall of snow, and it is then 

 necessary to wait at Baltal until the snow has 

 melted, or to follow the stream up a very narrow 

 rocky gorge, with precipices of from 500 to 1000 

 feet on either side. This gorge, however, is only 

 practicable when filled up by snow to about fifty 

 feet in depth, as it usually is early in the season : it 

 is then the usual route ; and at that season, in order 

 to avoid the avalanches, it is necessary to start at 

 night and get over the pass before sunrise. Aval- 

 anches do not fall until late in the day, after the 

 sun begins to melt the snow/' 1 



I do not think the road has been improved since 

 1 ' Ijahore to Yarkand.' London, 1873. 



