YA-CHOW-KUN 187 



the top I made the elevation to be 12,800 feet above 

 sea-level. Every winter lives are lost in this pass, for 

 though poles are put up to mark the track, if a snow- 

 storm should come on it is very easy to lose the way, 

 the pass not being just a passage over a ridge, but the 

 road leads right across a depression about three miles 

 across, called by the coolies, ' the cup.' Any deviation 

 from the path here would put them in deep snow, from 

 which they could only with the greatest difficulty 

 extricate themselves. On commencing the descent, in 

 most disagreeable weather, snow and sleet falling heavily, 

 I was glad to reach after a time a place named Ya-chow- 

 kun, where there is a rest-house frequented principally 

 by the Chinese collectors of medicine. There were 

 nearly fifty of them when I arrived, and a huge fire was 

 burning in the middle of the place, fed with logs quite 

 two feet in diameter. There was no chimney and the 

 inside was black with smoke ; the heat was, however^ 

 very comforting, and I found that there was a small 

 room built ofi at one end which I appropriated to my 

 own use. The house, though built strongly and on a 

 level piece of ground, had been blown much out of the 

 perpendicular, and had it not been supported by struts 

 on one side would certainly have fallen. The principal 

 room was about sixty feet long by thirty broad, and 

 in it the medicine collectors lived and slept. Just out- 



