448 A WELCOME POST-BAG. 



These pools often teem with little fish about the size of 

 small minnows. The glacier streams that flow from the 

 north side of the Himalayan range, though perfectly clear 

 until noon, are in the afternoon far more muddy and thick 

 than those that flow from the south side. The fish in these 

 northward-flowing streams ascend the clear little brooks that 

 run into them, often in shoals, when quantities of them can 

 sometimes easily be captured up to a pound or more in 

 weight. 



Here we found some Niti Bhdtias encamped, and amongst 

 them one of Puddoo's brothers. From him we learnt that 

 the Niti pad an, who was travelling by another route, had 

 brought up a lot of letters and newspapers for me ; so I at 

 once despatched a messenger to overhaul him, the arrival of 

 a post-bag being as welcome and exciting an event as it was 

 an unusual one in this remote region. 



The ground now became more tiresome to traverse ; the 

 sides of the deep ravines we had to cross in our next day's 

 work along the base of the Himalayan slopes being very 

 abrupt, and the earth of which they were composed rotten 

 and friable from constant frosts. The elevation, too, being 

 considerably higher than that of the table-lands below, we 

 consequently had " bellows to mend " pretty often, owing to 

 the constant succession of ups and downs. Away up on the 

 steep slopes above where we intended to camp, we made out 

 with the telescope a flock of some twenty Oves Ammon, but all 

 of them were ewes and lambs. Five or six burrell rams were 

 also descried lower down, and to these we at once devoted our 

 energies. We had managed to get round well above them, as 

 we thought, when Puddoo, who was leading, suddenly caught 

 sight of a single ram that was still slightly above us, at what 

 looked to be well over 200 yards off. By great good luck he did 

 not detect us from the commanding position he occupied, 

 before we had made ourselves as flat as possible behind a 

 hummock. As a burrell is not so big a mark as an Oxis 



