98 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



than and Tibet road, is considered the worst footpath 

 in Bussahir. This march will, I think, be the most 

 expensive on the road; the whole of the cutting will 

 be through hard rock." Any one who has had some 

 experience of the footpaths in Bussahir may conceive 

 what the worst of them is likely to be, but still he 

 may be unable to comprehend how it is possible to get 

 along faces of hard rock, thousands of feet above their 

 base, when there has been no cutting or blasting either. 

 It must be remembered, however, that though the 

 precipices of the Himaliya look almost perpendicular 

 from points where their entire gigantic proportions can 

 be seen, yet, on a closer examination, it turns out that 

 they are not quite perpendicular, and have many ledges 

 which can be taken advantage of by the traveUer. 



In this case the weather had worn away the softer 

 parts of the slate, leaving the harder ends sticking 

 out ; and I declare that these, with the addition of a 

 few'ropes of juniper-branches, were the only aids we 

 had along many parts of these precipices when I 

 crossed them. Where the protruding ends of slate 

 were close together, long slabs of slate were laid 

 across them, forming a sort of footpath such as might 

 suit a chamois-hunter; when they were not suffi 

 ciently in line, or were too far distant from each 

 other, to allow of slabs being placed, we worked our 

 way from one protruding end of slate to another as 

 best we could ; and where a long interval of twenty 

 or thirty feet did not allow of this latter method of 



