266 
THROUGH ASIA 
It was anything- but an easy task to get our heavily 
laden pack-horses safe and sound through this long and 
difficult defile. For the greater part of the way we were 
obliged to ride up the bed of the torrent ; and the tossing 
spray prevented us from watching the horses’ feet. The 
inhabitants of the district had filled up the lowest pools 
with blocks of stone, large and small, thus making a 
sort of bridge or causeway. But at the best, these pieces 
of road-making were only so many new pitfalls of peril. 
The water had scooped out and carried away all the 
smaller, softer materials which had been used to fill up 
the spaces between the bigger blocks ; so that the 
causeways were now full of gaping holes, into which the 
horses frequently slipped and nearly broke their legs. 
Two or three of them actually fell off the causeways. 
Then away dashed the men into the stream, to get them 
up again and rescue the cases and bales. All the way 
up my heart was in my mouth, for fear the horse I rode 
should give me an unwelcome bath. One spot in par- 
ticular I recollect quite well. It was a very ugly place. 
A number of big round stones, with brightly polished, 
slippery surfaces, formed a kind of sill stretching obliquely 
across the bed of the torrent. A couple of men climbed 
up each on to a large boulder, and seizing hold of the 
packing-cases, and hauling away at them, helped the 
horses to clamber over. 
At length however the path grew better. For at a 
spot called Tarning-bashi-moynak (the Pass at the Head 
of the Gorge) the glen was divided into two widely 
differing halves by a mountain - spur, which projected 
from the left. At its foot the torrent .shot down to 
such a great depth that it was quite impossible to advance. 
We therefore climbed up and over the crest of the pro- 
jecting spur, getting a magnificent view of the glen 
both ways, up and down, from the top. In striking 
contrast to the deep narrow gorge we had left, the glen 
ahead of us widened out into a broad, level valley, with 
gently sloping hillsides and rounded eminences above 
them, plenty of vegetation, and a practicable path along- 
