122 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



very uncomfortable one, and between wet, cold feet from 

 melted snow, and want of fire, and little to eat, and that 

 half-cooked, we did not sleep much. A good sheepskin 

 coat with the wool inside kept one pretty warm, and long 

 boots worn over three pairs of woollen stockings had kept 

 me dry while crossing the snow ; but when we came to 

 camp on the first bare ground below the snow line where 

 a few wild yak droppings were found, it became very 

 chilly. The tents were pitched on wet ground, and fires 

 would not bum well. Some soup and lukewarm tea 

 helped to restore us, and we tried to get warm with the 

 aid of thick blankets. The march had been a long and 

 trying one — sixteen hours over snow on very little food — 

 and all were thoroughly worn out and miserable, and too 

 weary to sleep. 



Daylight saw us on the move again. We were still 

 very high up — about 19,000 feet by the thermometer, 

 boiled over a lamp. The animals had nothing to eat. 

 The yaks grunted after their peculiar manner, entirely 

 different from the lowing of an ox or cow. They are a 

 distinct species, some people say, and not related to the 

 Indian cattle, which are smooth-skinned and white, and 

 have a hump on the withers. The yak is unlike in every 

 particular, being covered with long black hair, and having 

 a fringe and bushy tail reaching to the ground ; but they 

 will breed together, and the cross is much used for carry- 

 ing loads and called a jhohu. He takes most after the 

 yak, and can scarcely be distinguished from one, and 

 will breed again.* Here we were arrived at one of the 

 comers of the world where a wild ox exists, and appar- 



* As I understand him, Sir R. Strachey states, in his recently 

 published account of the Manasarowar lake country, that jhobu cows 

 will breed with a yak bull, but not with a jhobu bull, and that the 

 jhobu is the cross of yak cows and a Brahmini bull. 



