320 



CHAPTER XXII. 



We were now well out on the undulating uplands of 

 Hundes, and traversing ground where we might expect to 

 find the big wild sheep. A strange weird-looking land, to 

 all appearance a desert, stretching far and wide before us 

 towards distant ranges of barren undulating mountains, 

 tinted with every shade of red, yellow, purple, and blue, 

 rising tier beyond tier, and culminating in snow-clad ridges 

 and peaks — all their features looking marvellously distinct 

 through the clear rare atmosphere. Broad table-lands, 

 averaging about 15,000 feet above the sea-level, bare, 

 brown, and monotonous, sloping gradually down from the 

 foot of the great snowy chain of the Himalayas behind us, 

 and intersected by huge ravines, growing deeper and wider 

 as they all trend northwards towards the river Sutlej, here 

 called the Satroodra, flowing (from east to west), hidden 

 among their mighty labyrinths, far away below us. The 

 solemn waste here and there diversified by low arid hills of 

 a brick-red hue. In the dark sapphire-blue firmament, a 

 blazing sun shedding a cheerless dazzling glare on all around 

 us. Not a sound but the wailing of the wind to break the 

 dead depressing silence, save perhaps the hoarse croak of a 

 solitary big raven, or the snorting of a troop of kiang, as tlie 

 startled animals stand for a few seconds to gaze inquiringly 

 at the intruders on their wild domain, ere they wheel simul- 

 taneously about and gallop madly away over the rolling 

 wind-swept slopes of shingle and sun-baked earth, leaving a 

 driftinf; cloud of dust to mark their track. , 



