422 MEMOIR OF A SURVEY OF 



persuade them to leave us and return to Sadiya, but they would not. 

 They were probably afraid of being seized as slaves by the Singfos. 

 We first had to descend considerably by a steep and winding path 

 to the Moha Pani, which comes through a cleft from the north-east, 

 and immediately commenced a most laborious ascent at the opposite 

 mountain. The rock appeared to be gneiss and mica slate. About ten 

 o'clock our guides sat down by a little pool of muddy water, which they 

 warned us might be all we should see that day ; they laughed, and we did 

 not understand them quite so literally as they meant it. Again we set out 

 on the ascent, and surmounted one height after another, each of which in 

 succession appeared to be the summit of the mountain. We had left the 

 bamboo jungles, and were amongst dwarf moss grown trees, which spread 

 their crooked branches in wild irregularity, when showers passed us 

 every few minutes and made it very cold. Our guides darted on at an 

 increased pace, and though our eagerness to arrive at the end of our toil, 

 made Lieutenant Burlton and myself outstrip the rest of our party, we 

 were much behind our guides. One large peak at last long deceived us 

 with the expectation that it must be the last. Snow is said to remain on 

 it to a late season. But the top of this, when reached with many a weary 

 and slow step, gave us only a commanding view of the next still higher 

 ridge. At four o'clock, after being often in danger of losing our way, we 

 came up with our merry guides, who were sitting, cooking their rice under 

 the hollow of a large fallen tree. We asked eagerly for water to quench 

 the thirst now become painful, and were answered by taps on the tree 

 above them, and a nod of intelligence. In fact, this " Diamond" of the 

 mountain— this old hollow trunk, contained all the water that we could 

 expect to meet with that day. It is torn from its roots, and it did not 

 appear how water could collect in it, except from drippings from over- 

 hanging branches ; however, our guides asserted, that it gradually fills 

 again within a few hours after being emptied. We had already learned 

 to cook for ourselves, as the only means of securing a dinner, and we 



