seeking yet another, though the feet be heavy. Your solitude shall then be respected ; open only the way. Let no strange skeletons be mingled here with those of the yak, the gazelle, the wild dog—proper offerings on this your barren altar."
Thus may struggle the spirit of man with the spirits of all the conspiring elements. But the ponies? Ah ! they could but answer to the shrill jibe of the death-bearing night wind : "We bear the burdens of man, his will must we serve while we live, yours to-morrow when we die." How the poor brutes churned and churned all night long! They were tied in pairs, head to tail. Thus they could move, but could not stray. Little rest for them, this all-night milling round and round. But to stand still meant death.
The loss of one's ponies is the peril that hangs over all travel in this fatal region. It is impossible to soften the frightful conditions in which they strive to exist. They must travel to the limit of their endurance, because the land is foodless. They cannot be relieved from the effect of excessive altitude ; nor can they be protected at night from excessive cold. If the journey be long, they must be fed on small rations. A fair load for a pony in rough country is one hundred and fifty pounds, or say two hundred. If he were fed ten pounds a day, he could carry nothing more than his own food for a twenty-day journey. The occasional grass one meets counts for something, and we always sought to camp near even the meanest-looking patch of it. But one cannot rely upon it, and in the short time available for grazing over sparse growth, the animal
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