138 Narrative of a Journey to Cho Lagan, fyc. [Aug. 



mountains. What nature can afford of panoramic sublimity, the travel- 

 ler may see from the heights above Sakh on the road from Laptel to 

 Dungpu, and the most exacting imagination might hardly be disap- 

 pointed with that glorious view ; some part of that is to be seen from 

 the Niti Pass, the only one I believe that admits of any tolerable pros- 

 pect into Hundes ; from the top of the Lakhiir over Chirchun, I had 

 some faint and narrow glimpse of the distant Gangri mountains. 



The possibility of a fall of snow, which might prove dangerous to us 

 in this situation at this late hour of the day, hurried our movements 

 down the north side of the pass. We descended forthwith, after 

 hastily dismissing one of the Bhotias, with the two spare Zhobus, who 

 returned toward Kunti with a message of our having crossed the pass 

 in safety thus far. 



The first few hundred feet of the descent was extremely steep, the 

 slope and quantity of snow very suitable for glissading, but I was not 

 in the humour for trying it that way. At the foot of this declivity was 

 a shelf of comparative level, beyond which I was unable to see any 

 thing clearly for the fall of the ground and the obscurity of the wea- 

 ther, and I erroneously imagined that our labours would soon be termi- 

 nated by reaching terra-firma. The descent began again in a succes- 

 sion of steep slopes on which the snow lay deeper than ever, and in 

 many places it was of very unpleasant consistency, being superficially 

 hardened by frost at top, and soft below, so that it afforded firm foot- 

 ing for an instant, and then suddenly gave away plunging us knee-deep 

 at every other step. I much admired the style in which the laden 

 Chanwrs came down the snowy declivity ; they looked like ships driv- 

 ing before a gale in a heavy sea, the snow flying in spray before them, as 

 they tumbled through it breast-deep ; what a pleasant contrast to the 

 slow toilsome efforts with which they ascended the other side. Half 

 way down we crossed great mounds of broken rock that looked very 

 much like the moraine of a glacier, and the Bhotias called it Gal, 

 though I could not make it out clearly for the quantity of snow with 

 which it was covered in most places. I was now much exhausted with 

 the fatigue of eight hours wading through snow, and from the want of air 

 which made me gasp for breath at the sudden plunges into soft snow ; 

 half stupified and tumbling over at every step, I was at last glad to 

 avail myself of the support of Bhauna and Rechu, who were themselves 



