Black Bears 237 



snapped, everything would have been buried in snow 

 and under fallen canvas ; but with clothes on I could 

 not hurt, after I had been duly extricated from the 

 ruins. 



All through that day, and all night long, avalanches 

 were falling continually up in the mountains and round 

 us with a crunching, roaring sound like thunder. 

 After all, the tents did not come down, and we awoke 

 to a beautiful sunny morning, the sky having resumed 

 its delicious blue and the valley its unrivalled beauty. 

 Everything was buried under a glittering shroud of 

 snow. The babble of the stream was bound by fetters 

 of ice. No branches creaked in the still air, no 

 birds sang, no one passed us. There, in unspeakable 

 solitude, lay our little camp. 



Rejoicing in the sun, we spent the morning in drying 

 our things and generally straightening up ; while Lalla 

 went off to try and arrange for coolies to carry our 

 transport. Snow having once set in, the sooner we 

 moved down the better. I shall never forget that 

 day everything wreathed and buried in white (for 

 there were two feet on the level), the strange, fantastic 

 shapes, the dazzling icicles, the deodar branches 

 weighed down under white feather-beds, the great 

 rolling, curling snow-drifts ; it was the whitest world 

 I have ever seen. 



Near my tent the servants scraped a circle in the 

 snow, and, as well as they could with the damp 

 wood, lit two little fires. They squatted round the 

 fires, with the two kilters, which contained all our 



