the pines showed where unusually large avalanches had swept away all the trees. It was colder now, for we were at an elevation of over 8000 feet. As the snow was dry, the men swathed their feet and legs in crude " putties," mere strips of woolen cloth, wound round and round and tied with strings. We spent the night in a so-called rest-house, a mere shed, where no one could rest because of the smoke. A tremendous wind swooping down the valley woke us at two o'clock, and at three we were under way. In the clear light before sunrise we tramped through the cold blue shadows on the hard crust to the top of our first great Himalayan pass, Zoji La, 11,300 feet above the sea.
The men's wages, according to the official scale, were eight cents a day, except for especially hard stretches, where they got ten. As nothing is ever paid for the return journey, four or five cents a day was all that they were entitled to for the most exhausting labor; but the means of supporting life in Kashmir are so cheap that with this they were able not only to pay for their own food, chiefly bread and rice, but to support their families. In spite of their unwillingness to go, the men seemed cheerful in their stolid way, and chattered like magpies when they came in for the night. A present of a little tea all around made them quite jovial.
The bearing of burdens by coolies is a necessity, if communication is to be kept up among the snowy mountains of Kashmir; but its influence is distinctly bad, encouraging brutality and violence on the part of employers, and engendering deceit, laziness, and selfishness in the men-of-burden. Our coolies engaged in regular fights for the lightest load,
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