342 
THROUGH ASIA 
in the middle, but grew narrower towards their extremities. 
Tlie glacier was probably about five-eighths of a mile 
broad, and its breadth everywhere tolerably equal. It 
appeared to be considerably steeper than it really was ; 
but in this it was the eye that was at fault. The mountain 
summit was high above us, whilst the tongue of the glacier 
stretched a long way below us ; and in the clear, attenuated 
mountain air the distance between these two points ap 
peared to be quite short. No traces of striation or glacial 
scratches were perceptible on the perpendicular rocks, 
which towered 1300 feet above the surface of the glacier. 
This negative testimony does not, however, count for 
much ; as, if at any time such indications did exist, they 
would long ago have been obliterated by the weathering 
of the rocks, a process which is ceasele.ssly going on in 
these parts, mainly because of the enormous and sudden 
changes of temperature. The part of the mountain on 
which we then were had consequently a ragged, serrated 
edge, consisting of an unbroken series of rocky projec- 
tions and undulations, which had nothing whatever to 
do with the glacier, as they were exclusively the result of 
weathering. 
The side of the mountain sloped here at an angle of 
twenty-two degrees towards the plain of Su-bashi, a 
gradient which was easily perceptible in the rarefied air. 
The snow became purer and more dazzling, and the icy 
crust crackled audibly. We advanced slowly, doubling 
one rocky projection after another, and skirting the bays or 
recesses between them, faithfully following the outline of 
the edge of the rocks ; while new perspectives of exactly 
the same kind continued to appear one after the other 
the higher we ascended. At an altitude of 16,700 feet 
Mollah Islam and two of the other Kirghiz left their yaks 
in the snow, declaring that it would be better to walk. 
However, they did not get more than six hundred feet 
higher when they fell down from exhaustion and head- 
ache, and were soon dead asleep in the snowdrifts. 
I went on with the two remaining Kirghiz and the two 
yaks. My beast was always led by one of them ; the 
