THROUGH ASIA 
338 
and packed in the evening. The day had been fine ; but 
at dusk the usual hailstorm came on, accompanied by 
a gale of wind. The mountain, with its snowy wastes 
and white icefields, which a while ngo had glittered in the 
still bright evening air, was again enveloped in thick 
clouds, and towards evening the wind-gods whirled in 
a frantic dance round one of their loftiest thrones. . 
Leaving Islam Bai to take care of the camp, 1 set off, 
on August 6th, at half-past six in the morning, accom- 
panied by Yehim Bai, Mollah Islam, and three other 
Kirghiz, and a train of seven splendid yaks. 
The day was brilliantly fine ; so absolutely clear was the 
atmosphere that the smallest details of the mountain could 
be distinguished even from its foot, and the summit seemed 
quite near, although the declivities deceptively hid the 
highest parts. Not a breath of wind stirred the air; 
not a cloud marred the serene purity of the heavens. At 
first we rode slowly, in the light of the rising sun, up the 
gradually ascending slopes of the Yam-bulak-bashi, then 
up the steeps in the shade of the rock, till the sun got 
so high, that it beat full in our faces. 
We made good progress, and by ten minutes past seven 
had reached the height of 14,760 feet. The steep declivi- 
ties were now littered with gravelly material, of the same 
varieties as the solid rock higher up. The gravel was 
so closely packed that no vegetation was able to insinuate 
its roots. Two of the yaks had already ‘ struck, and as 
they delayed us very much we left them behind. The 
Kirghiz preferred to walk, and took it in turns to lead 
the big handsome yak I was riding, which climbed up 
the sloping debris without any apparent effort. By eight 
o’clock we had reached the altitude of Mont Blanc, and 
a short distance above that, at 16,250 feet, we reached the 
snow-line. At first the snow lay in smallish patches, with 
the debris exposed between them, then in a continuous 
sheet, through which individual fragments of rock protruded 
here and there. The snow was compact and coarse- 
grained, but had no hard crust. After we had ascended 
another six or seven hundred feet, the snow was caked 
