STRIKING SCENERY. 313 



themselves are said to complain of shortness in breathing and 

 headache. From this it would seem either that height is not 

 the sole cause of, at any rate, the latter sensation, or the rarity 

 of the air must vary considerably at equal altitudes, under 

 different conditions. These ideas, which have been suggested 

 to me not only by my own experiences, but also by those of 

 other Himalayan travellers with whom I have talked on the 

 subject, may perhaps be considered rather wild, so let us now 

 turn from this long theoretical digression to something more 

 practical. 



Next morning we went up the glen in search of dong. 

 There was a desolate grandeur about the mountains flanking 

 it that was very striking, though perhaps not so charming to 

 the eye as the forest-clad ranges of the" Himalayas. The high 

 arid hills to the right were rounded in form and of a general 

 reddish yellow, like the colour of a half-burnt brick ; whereas 

 on the left they reared aloft in grey precipices, or in steep 

 acclivities covered with large loose stones and shingle towards 

 broad beds of snow, or serrated ridges of rock frowning grimly 

 above. In some of the rifts and gullies running down into the 

 glen lay beds of ntvd, terminating in abrupt broken declivities 

 of pure white ice. Altogether it was a savage scene of utter 

 loneliness, which language would fail to describe. And the 

 silence ! during the lulls between the howling blasts of wind, 

 the deep depressing silence that reigned over this desert waste 

 was truly appalling. In most places one is accustomed to the 

 buzz of insects, the rustle of leaves, or the "busy hum," 

 though perhaps only as an almost imperceptible murmur. 

 Even at dead of night the air is nearly always stirred by 

 sound of some kind, however lightly it may affect the sense 

 of hearing. Here, the stillness is as of a sepulchre all Nature 

 seems dead ! 



But I am forgetting that as so comparatively few of my 

 readers can have seen the wild yak of Tibet (Paephagus grun- 

 niens), the majority of them may wish to know what the crea- 



