IBEX-SHOOTING IN BALTISTAN 135 



before, that as a physical entity you are after all but 

 a minute atom in the plan of creation. Other trains 

 of philosophical thought might be called up in such 

 surroundings, did not the much more practical if 

 prosaic truth occur to you that you are aiming at a 

 spot some hundreds of miles across those mountains, 

 and that in order to reach it that splendid but all too 

 prominent landscape has to be crossed. It is only by 

 plugging at it little by little, stage by stage, that it 

 ever is crossed. There are moments of discourage- 

 ment, of course. Sometimes the trail will lead you 

 two thousand feet straight up into the air and two 

 thousand feet straight down to river-level again, and 

 all the sweat of that honest toil may have advanced 

 you just half a mile on your way. But as every half- 

 mile is put behind your back, the satisfaction of 

 having overcome difficulties gives you just so much 

 encouragement for the labor which lies ahead. This 

 was the sort of work which from now on was to at- 

 tend our journey. 



Fortunately, however, it is not all barren rock 

 and sand that marks the trail. The Balti villages lie 

 along the rocky ravines like oases in this desert 

 of mountains ; and as they depend for cultivation 

 entirely on furrow-irrigation, each one, of course, 

 clusters about some mountain stream which often 

 shoots in a mighty waterfall from a precipice behind. 



