HILL YARKAND. 
99 
possibly follow, we encamped for the night, and 
next day, August 7th, about 10 a.m., when the stream 
was at its lowest, succeeded in fording the river on 
yaks. Several of our men got a ducking, and all 
the baggage was wetted. The Yarkandi ladies dis- 
tinguished themselves for their pluck and energy, and 
were the first to get across. Near the Tograsu I 
saw what appeared to be signs of former cultivation. 
Nine miles march brought us to a place called Pila-ta 
Ghash, where there was plenty of grass. The road 
to-day was pretty level, but extremely bad, and with- 
out the yaks we could not have made the march at all. 
Next morning we reached the foot of the Sanju 
pass, about twelve miles by the direct road. The bag- 
gage had to be sent round by a steep road over some 
spurs which project into the Karakash valley, whilst 
we waded up to the waist along the face of a cliff 
which was washed by the river. We had previously 
passed the small fort of Kurgan, and, leaving the 
river after accomplishing the difficult part of the 
march, we turned to the left and entered a narrow 
gorge which led towards the Sanju or Grim pass. 
Here I caught a Weasel ; the specimen was sub- 
mitted for examination to Mr. G. Nevill, of the 
Calcutta Museum, who says : " The brown Mustela 
would appear to be interesting and possibly new. 
It closely resembles our common M. vulgaris!^ Un- 
fortunately I left this specimen at Calcutta, together 
with all the mammals, fish, and reptiles. 
We struggled along until dark over the worst 
ground I ever traversed, but failing to find a suitable 
place for a camp, we had at last to be content with a 
small open space where there was no grass or fuel, 
H 2 
