230 
THROUGH ASIA 
turned off eastwards, so as to descend the deep valley of 
the Ghez, which eats its way far into the heart of the 
Mus-tagh chain. I am sorry to say I know little about the 
road we followed, for I rode with my eyes almost com- 
pletely blinded by bandages. I can only say, that we 
reached our first night’s station, Utch-kappa (the Three 
Stone Huts), down steep, breakneck paths. The next day 
we had to traverse an extremely difficult gorge of the 
Ghez-daria. The current was very strong and clung close 
to the foot of the high crags which shut in the valley on 
the right. The path wound down the face of the almost 
vertical cliffs, being protected on the outer or river side by 
a breastwork of stakes and poles latticed together with 
withes. My men thought they would prefer to go down 
by the bed of the stream. But the leading horses came 
within an ace of losing their foothold in the deep, swift 
current ; and that sent the men back to the path. On we 
struggled, slowly, contending against serious difficulties, 
until two of the horses stumbled and refused to advance 
another step. This compelled us to return once more 
to the river-bed. We proceeded with the utmost caution, 
and finally succeeded in getting through the gorge. 
I judged it wisest to trust my packing-cases only to the 
best of the horses, and this necessitated unloading and 
loading up again, which wasted a good deal of time. 
Each packhorse was taken through by two mounted men, 
who held themselves in readiness to whip him on if he 
happened to heel over. It was a very queer feeling came 
over me when I moved down into the turbulent current, 
neither seeing the bottom, nor yet knowing whether it 
was covered with loose gravel or big cobble-stones, 
whether it was deep or shallow. One thing, however, 
was imperative, namely to keep fast to the ford, or I 
should get a bath ; and a bath in such a place, seeing that 
I was riding with my feet in the stirrups, would have been 
dangerous, for only a few paces distant the cliffs closed in 
upon the river, and drove it plunging down a cataract. 
From that point onwards we crossed and re-crossed the 
stream several times, sometimes wading through fords. 
