FOR THE HIMALAYAS. 53 



useful patterns, the first being to dig a small deep hole in the 

 ground, wider at the bottom than top ; plaster it round with clay, 

 and light a fire in it ; keep up the latter until the pit has become 

 quite red-hot round the sides. Then have the ashes and embers 

 removed, and lay your loaves at the bottom, cover the mouth 

 with a flat stone, and keep the air out by putting some clay around 

 it. The bread will be from half to one hour baking, according to 

 the size and heat of the oven ; practice will enable one to judge the 

 time. The other oven is made by stones above ground, covered 

 with earth and used in the same way. Excellent cakes, pastry and 

 bread can be turned out in these rough contrivances. For pastry 

 one is often at a loss for butter ; a good cook will produce a fine 

 white fat from the interior of any sheep, with which he can make 

 up puffs, cakes, or pastry. It is a very acceptable change from 

 bread alone, although it does not read as a very choice preparation. 

 Bridges. Many varieties will be met with, including suspension, 

 pine-log, grass-rope, brushwood-rope, and raw-hide. As for the 

 word bridge in the mountains, it means a way of crossing a river 

 above the water, quite regardless of the manner in which it is 

 accomplished. You may ride, walk, crawl, or be slung over ; still, the 

 means are all bridges. The suspension require no remark, neither 

 do the pine-log, as they are usually well built on good foundations ; 

 but the grass-rope are very insecure things to look at, and at the 

 end of the season, when the ropes have pretty well rotted, much 

 care is required that too great a strain is not thrown on them. 

 The loads should be cut down, and two or more trips made by each 

 man, till all the baggage is safe across. Over these and the 

 brushwood-rope, grass shoes or stocking feet should be the way 

 for a sportsman to make the passage ; shooting boots are too hard 

 and slippery. The brushwood-rope are made of a kind of four-plait, 

 three or four such ropes at bottom to form the footpath, and other 

 two or three on each side to form supports ; the latter are joined 

 to the centre by stray binders. The whole bridge is a thing of dis- 

 comfort, for the ends of the sticks catch one's clothes and delay 

 one in a nasty swaying, jumpy spot, perhaps over the centre of 

 a mighty torrent. A man before one will make the passage much 

 easier The last kind, the raw-hide, are peculiar, for they consist 

 of a single rope about as thick as four fingers, stretched across a 

 gorge ; on it travels a large wooden fork, with a raw-hide loop 

 made fast to each of the prongs. A light line extends to either 



