DESERT. 
71 
which time our stores of food would have been 
exhausted, and we might have found it impossible to 
carry out our latest instructions, which were to return at 
all hazards before winter, we had no help for it but to 
weed out the worst horses — and they amounted to 
seventy. We also sent back all superfluous camp 
followers, and thus reduced as much as possible the 
size of our camp. Some time afterwards we dis- 
covered that after leaving Le our best horses had 
been secretly changed by the Ladak officials, whereby 
their pockets had been filled at our expense. When 
returning from Yarkand we adopted the plan of 
branding the hoofs of all our animals, to prevent similar 
practices. During the halt at Pamtzil, as hares were 
reported to be plentiful, 1 went out with my gun ; 
but returned without having seen any animal life. 
In the evening Mr. Forsyth entertained at dinner 
our Yarkandi companions, and chairs being deficient, 
we adopted the oriental custom of sitting on the 
ground. After dinner we heard a great shouting and 
excitement in camp, the cause of which turned out to 
be that the river had risen and was rapidly flooding 
the camp. By an energetic efibrt an embankment 
was soon thrown up, and no damage was done, as 
the river subsided again very soon. On the 18th July 
we marched to Gokra, thirteen miles up the Chang 
Chen mo valley. We forded the river about midway 
without much difficulty. At Grokra the river flows 
from west to east, but near the place where we 
crossed, it takes a bend and flows from east to west 
so that the Gokra and Pamtzil valleys are nearly 
parallel to each other. They are separated by lofty 
and very rugged mountains. Twenty miles above 
