I20 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



spirits again. One or two plainsmen there were com- 

 pletely hors de combat, shivering and chattering with cold. 

 They had to take a turn on yaks or ponies. 



There was just above us a rocky peak from which a 

 better view could be got, so Hodgson and I started to 

 climb it. There were great rocks lying on one another, 

 perfectly clean and freshly fractured, without lichen or 

 stain of any sort, some balanced so that they moved when 

 trod upon, though many tons in weight. How did they 

 get broken, and what force of Nature placed them there 

 as if neatly deposited the day before, sharp from the 

 quarry ? How many thousand years had those frag- 

 ments of rock been there braving the storms and frosts ? 

 There was no higher place for them to fall from ; they 

 were themselves the top summit of a small rocky needle. 

 Looking suddenly through a rift in the clouds somewhere 

 we had not come from, we saw a lake, black as pitch, 

 its dismal surface rippled gently by a curling breeze, and 

 in it were floating islands and glistening icebergs. Be- 

 yond was a wall of black, clear ice, going sheer down into 

 the lake, and going up, up to the clouds. Could anything 

 living exist under the shadow of that vast cliff ? The 

 rocks trembled under our feet, and terror seized us 

 involuntarily that a great catastrophe was near. Sud- 

 denly the ice wall seemed to be sinking like the curtain 

 of a theatre. There came a sough of cold, clammy wind 

 in our faces. There was a cracking and a roar, and 

 the sound of billows raging. The lake seemed to rise 

 and surge up to where we stood, and the iceberg to sink 

 into the watery depths below. We were surprised to 

 find the rocks still balanced true under our feet, and that 

 we were standing safely, though scarcely daring to ad- 

 vance or go back. We even forgot which side we had 

 mounted from, while all was again lost in dense cloud. 



