150 The Wonderful Mekong 
were we, sometimes over 10,000 feet, that there was a 
considerable variety of shrubs. 
On the 17th we set out very early, as I wished to reach 
Adong that night, and at midday I left the caravan and 
rode on ahead, confident that the men would follow on till 
they overtook me. Unfortunately I did not realise how 
far we still were from Adong, and the most execrable part 
of the road was still to come. In places it was horribly 
dangerous, and for miles two ponies could not have passed 
each other by any possible manoeuvre save that of leap 
frog. I was thankful we met none. To make matters 
worse my pony threw me and then ran away, and I had 
great difficulty in securing him, though happily he could 
not leave the path. The long hot days in the saddle had 
made me feel dazed and drowsy, and being thoroughly 
sick of the sight of the Mekong, I paid little attention to 
the scenery, though one big cataract we passed was par- 
ticularly fine. 
It was dusk when I reached the dark gorge leading up 
from the river to Adong, and in the waning light nothing 
could have exceeded the grandeur of the scenery here— 
towering limestone cliffs with scattered clinging fir trees, 
the torrent pouring over the rocky precipice in a mighty 
cascade which filled the gorge with thunder, and looking 
back, the vast icy pyramid of K‘a-gur-pu, pallid and almost 
unreal against that velvet sky, blocking up the mouth of 
the ravine. 
Long before I reached Adong it was pitch dark, and 
not knowing the road, I was forced to dismount-and lead 
my pony. Once we stopped instinctively; we were not on 
the path at all, but on the brink of a precipice. However, 
eventually we reached the scattered village, and selecting a 
familiar-looking house as likely to be the one we had stayed 
at previously, | made an assault upon the door. 
‘“Fullo there!” I shouted in Tibetan, and immediately 
came the answer, ‘‘ What do you want?” 
Unfortunately I had now come to the end of my 
Tibetan vocabulary, and had to go on in Chinese. ‘Open 
the door,” I said; ‘I want to stay here to-night, and will 
give you money.” 
But I might as well have talked English, for all I was 
