n6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a few days afterward, had to guard against the dangers of living 

 in a tent. In that region the Kanjntis are on the watch for the 

 traveler, and, learning his ways in the day, attack him at night. 

 If he pitches a tent, they cut the ropes and catch him inside it. 

 " So, as I wished to end my journey in India, and not in Kanjut, I 

 gave up using a tent, and for three weeks, while crossing the 

 Himalayas, bivouacked out, spreading my rugs on the ground on 

 the least windy side of any friendly rock I could find, and always 

 changing my position after dark." 



A complete outfit had to be procured for crossing the lofty 

 range — good, sound, hard ponies, spare shoes for them, and tools 

 for shoeing them ; pack-saddles and blankets, and long sheep-skin 

 coats for the men, and, as there would be no paths, pick-axes and 

 spades for road-making. " As we got further into the mountains, 

 I noticed that the heavy haze which perpetually hangs over the 

 Kashgar and Yarkand districts faded away. This haze must, I 

 think, be formed of dust stirred up by the strong winds which 

 blow almost daily in those districts, for I noticed that there was 

 a thin, permanent coating of dust on the rocks in the valley of 

 the Tisuaf River, where there is practically no natural dust, but 

 over which this haze continually hangs, and that, as we advanced 

 inland and the haze disappeared, so also did this coating of dust 

 on the rocks." 



From the summit of the Aghil Darvan Pass (sixteen thousand 

 or seventeen thousand feet high) the author had a view of the 

 great Mustagh Range, or Karakorum Mountains, which form 

 the water-shed between the rivers that flow into the Indian Ocean 

 and those which take their way toward central Asia, with an 

 immense glacier flowing down from the main range. " The ap- 

 pearance of these mountains is extremely bold and rugged as they 

 rise in succession of needle peaks, like hundreds of Matterhorns 

 collected together ; but the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and all the 

 Swiss mountains would have been several hundred feet below me, 

 while these mountains rose up in solemn grandeur thousands of 

 feet above me. Not a living thing was seen and not a sound was 

 heard; all was snow and ice and rocky precipices, while these 

 mountains are far too grand to support anything so insignificant 

 as trees or vegetation of any sort. They stand bold and solitary 

 in their glory, and only permit man to come among them for a 

 few months in the year, that he may admire their magnificence 

 and go tell it to his comrades in the world beneath. As I looked 

 on the scene, I felt as if I were intruding on the abode of some 

 great, invisible, but all-pervading deity." 



After ascending the Sarpo Laggo River for a few miles toward 

 the Mustagh Pass, " we came in view of the great peak K2, the 

 second highest mountain in the world, 28,250 feet in height. We 



