220 



TO THE KARAKORUM. 



an invasion on my part : they are not so encouraging as 

 they were. I saw each horse provided with two seers of 

 grain (wheat), and turned in. An exceedingly sharp 

 frost. 



17th August. To Pulu: a long march of, I should 

 think, little under eighteen miles. There was a great 

 improvement in the road, the first part of which led up 

 the wide sandy channel as yesterday : the running waters 

 were covered with ice, and the air was bitterly cold. The 

 many streams necessitated riding, the consequence "being 

 extreme suffering from cold in hands and feet. After 

 four or five miles, a tract less intersected by streams 

 allowed me to dismount, when I led off at a sharp trot, 

 but had hardly sped sixty paces, when I was summarily 

 checked by suffocation, my lungs heaving up and down 

 violently, craving for inflation, but deriving no relief 

 from the thin atmosphere. I fell leaning upon a large 

 stone luckily at hand, and then underwent something 

 very like death. I asked myself, ' Is this death seizing 

 me ?' The paroxysm did not nor could it last more 

 than a few seconds, when with many long- continued 

 gasps I gradually felt my lungs in play again, and will 

 take good care not to put them out of gear again in a 

 hurry. 



We threaded some wild narrow ravines, only allowing 

 the torrent which cleft them passage ; then we emerged 

 into sunshine, a valley opening out, and hills and peaks 

 stooping down, until we found ourselves ascending a 

 smooth gradual elevation, from the top of which, rolling 

 away from our feet, was an immense, wavy, undulating 

 table-land, stretching away on all sides, bounded in the 

 distance by much-broken ranges of snow-clad mountains, 

 but presenting no remarkable features. This elevated 

 plain being some 17,000 feet above the sea, its excres- 



