DIFFICULTIES OF A WINTER MARCH. 
479 
at the pale regions that approached the summit, we found snow 
in all the hollows, and lying thickly amidst the trees. Another 
hour and a half brought us to the highest point of our march, 
whence we wound along the steep and woody brow of the moun¬ 
tain, where every tree was sear, and the roots of them all bedded 
deep in snow for a length of two miles, at which extreme 
northern side we began another path, descending into the very 
lap of winter. Our way lay down the water-coursed declivity 
of a precipitous and icy ravine, where the horses and mules, 
from the latter circumstance, could with difficulty keep their 
feet. Necessary caution created delay, and the evening rapidly 
closing upon us, alarmed some of our Courds. We were yet 
many hours from the village marked out by our guide for 
lodging the night, and the tracts around were notoriously subject 
to the Bilbossi marauder. But earlier in the day, I had been 
obliged to choose between two possible evils ; risking an en¬ 
counter with those freebooters, or a worse danger to me, a sud¬ 
den fall of snow before I could clear the mountains. The 
wasting of one twenty-four hours by a panic halt for that time, 
might probably incur that accident, and shut me up amongst 
these then hardly passable heights of Courdistan for the whole 
winter. While we were yet on the south-eastern side of the 
Kourtak, my Serdasht mehmandar had tried to persuade me to 
stop the remainder of the day and night at Istan, a small village 
a little out of the road ; but I determined to proceed, for the 
reason just mentioned ; and my own people had not been back¬ 
ward in shewing the Courd, that no apprehension of threatened 
surprises, &c. could intimidate them from pressing forward. 
Indeed, our party was of tolerable strength with regard to num¬ 
bers and arms, and most of the escort appeared as ready to face 
