1 62 A Sportswoman in India 



deadly cold. The Zoji La is a sort of gate in the vast 

 range of the Western Himalayas, which includes Nanga 

 Parbat (26,620 feet high) ; it is a gigantic step over 

 two thousand feet by which one rises from Kashmir 

 up on to the table-lands of Thibet. It divides the 

 dominions of the Rajah of Kashmir into two nearly 

 equal portions, in which the climate is different, and 

 the race and religion of the inhabitants are different. 

 On the one side sunny Kashmir, the Aryan race and 

 the Mohammedan religion ; on the other the bleak 

 wastes of Central Asia, the Mongolian race and the 

 Buddhist religion. 



The valley of Sonamerg ends in Baltal, at the 

 foot of the pass. Baltal, a collection of three or four 

 rough stone huts clustered together, forms a refuge 

 for dak-waller s^ and for the Ladakis and Dards 

 bringing droves of baggage-mules across the pass. 

 English sportsmen, too, cross over every year into 

 Ladak directly the pass is practicable, and many a 

 one has known what it is to be snowed up at Baltal. 

 Game, in these bad days, is only to be found within 

 reduced areas in Kashmir, and so one is driven 

 farther afield in search of the much coveted markhor, 

 ovis ammon, ovis poll, yak, etc. 



It was sleeting a little, and we went into the largest 

 hut, where there was a fire on the mud floor of damp 

 birch logs, and a suffocating smoke in which we 

 coughed and wept. Some stunted Dras coolies of 

 the ugly Mongolian type were squatting round it. 

 Outwardly they compare to disadvantage with the 



