g86 
THROUGH ASIA 
the Arka-tagh. It cost us a good deal of hard labour to 
get the horses up. Yet no sooner had we accomplished 
that than we were enveloped in clouds, and assailed by a 
gale of snow and hail, and wrapped in an impenetrable 
mist. We were unable to see which way to go, and yet 
I was reluctant to lose the opportunity which the pass 
afforded of obtaining a general view of the complicated and 
bewildering mountain region in which we were entangled. 
After a short consultation, we decided to rest where we 
were, on the top of the pass, which attained an altitude of 
17,235 feet. That day we had travelled 16 ^ miles. 
The camp was hastily arranged. It was raw and cold, 
and very disagreeable. The least exertion brought on 
palpitation of the heart and shortness of breath. The 
wind cut through everything, and the hail swept through 
the pass with merciless violence. There was no grass, 
not a particle of anything to make a fire of, and the water 
had to be fetched from a crevice in the rocks a long way 
down the pass. But about five o’clock it cleared up 
sufficiently to let us see, away in the south and south- 
west, a sharp snowy crest of some reddish rock ; but there 
did not appear to be any practicable pass over it. The 
pass upon which we were encamped only led over another 
spur of the Arka-tagh. We had therefore climbed it to 
no purpose. Immediately south of it however was a deep 
and precipitous ravine, the gathering-trench of rivulets that 
poured down from an inextricable labyrinth of mountain- 
chains and peaks, and their connecting ridges. Towards 
the east however we believed we could distinouish a slight 
notch in the Arka-tagh, and there was a latitudinal 
valley running straight in that direction. All around us 
was a perfect chaos of mountains, some raven black, 
others brick-red or green, the highest of all white with 
snow. Relatively they were of no great elevation : we 
seemed to be at the same altitude as most of them. 
But the vast ocean of mountains was soon wreathed 
in thick clouds and a driving snowstorm. Away they 
fiew in a mad race over the mountain-tops — those dense 
heavy masses of cloud, trailing the fringes of their snowy 
