LA DAK. 35 
instruments of torture I never could stand. He has 
to live on chupatties (unleavened cakes) and milk, or 
on biscuits and sardines, when, as often happens, no 
supplies are to be had within thirty miles. At night 
he has often to bivouac under shelter of a rock with 
snow all round, for it is not always possible to carry 
even the smallest of tents. 
Three months of this life, notwithstanding the 
exposure, effects a wonderful improvement in the 
health of any one, who has been thoroughly done up 
by several years of service on the plains of India. I 
have seen a man walking regularly his thirty miles a 
day over difl&cult ground, who, on starting two months 
before, had to ride, or get carried, two thirds of every 
march. The remarkable thing is that even a person 
of delicate health does not suffer from the exposure, and 
one never by any chance catches a cold, at least in 
the mountains beyond Kashmir, where the climate 
is excessively dry. There is probably no climate 
in the world so good for invalids as that of Tibet, 
the region we were now about to enter. 
IV. LADAK. 
At daybreak on the morning of the 20th June, we 
started from Baltal to cross the Zoji-la Pass, the 
summit of which is 11,000 feet above the sea-level, 
and about 2000 feet above Baltal. (" La" in Tibetan 
means a pass.) 
Our road lay to the north, and for the first mile 
followed one of the two streams which here join to 
form the Sind river ; the stream which we followed 
rises on the top of the pass, the other flows down a 
D 2 
