THROUGH ASIA 
376 
I stepped out to see the full moon rise, and watch it 
dim the stars, which only just before had glittered so 
brightly in the deep blue heavens. It was not far to 
the boundless realms of space ; and the sovereign of the 
night rose with a splendour so dazzling that it was only 
by an effort of will that I was able to keep my eyes upon 
her. I seemed to be regarding a burnished silver shield 
suspended in the sunshine, or a gigantic electric lamp. 
Serenely yet majestically the moon sailed above the 
opposite wall of the glacier defile, with its grand, black, 
perpendicular rocks, the glacier itself being still in shadow 
in the depths below. Every now and again I heard the 
dull crack of a new crevasse forming, or the crash of an 
avalanche falling from the ice-mantle. 1 he moon shed 
her silver light over our camping-ground in lavish measure, 
conjuring forth the most entrancing effects. 'I he yaks 
were thrown up in dark, sharply-defined relief against the 
white snow, their heads drooping low, silent as the stones 
they were bound to ; every now and then they ground 
their teeth against the fibrous pad of their upper jaw, or 
crunched the snow under their feet, as they changed 
position. The tent looked like some w'eird figure of a 
seated giant ; the ring at the top of the poles being his 
head, and the frame hung with felt mats his body. The 
three Kirghiz who could not be accommodated inside the 
yurt made a fire between a couple of large rocks. When 
this died out they doubled themselves up in a kneeling 
posture with their heads on the ground, enveloped in their 
fur coats, and crowded together round the dying embers 
like bats in winter. From the yurt and the yaks long 
narrow shadows, intensely dark, streamed out across the 
north-west slope, in sharp contrast with the sparkling 
snowfields, on which myriads of small ice-crystals glittered 
like fire-flies. All round the tent, where the snow had 
been trampled dowm, the light and shade alternated in 
small patches. On the steep slopes in the north-w'est the 
beautiful curves and noble outlines of the vast snowTelds, 
modelled by the capricious winds, were lit up with a magic 
glamour. But I looked in vain for the marvellous tints 
