IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
182 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. [CHAP. VII.
gorge, which the stream fills up completely, and through this gorge the guide now led us, though I found, in 1889, that a " much better road led over the top. The boulders over which the torrent dashed were covered with ice, and it was cruel work
taking the ponies up. They were constantly slipping and
falling back, cutting their hocks and knees to pieces. But we
got them through without accident, and emerged on to a wide
plain, evidently the bed of a lake, which must have been formed by the rocky obstacle we had passed through before the stream had cut its way down to its present level and thus afforded an outlet to the dammed-up waters.
This plain, which was covered with jungle of dwarf birch and willow or poplar, extended for about two miles. At a couple of
miles from the gorge, and again at about nine miles, con-
siderable streams flow in on the right bank of the Surakwat, and, at a mile from the last, two more narrow gorges were
passed through ; though here again, on my journey up here
in 1889, we succeeded in making a road round to circumvent
them. It was altogether a bad day's march for both men and
ponies, but at last, toward evening, we found the valley opening to a wide plain, with plenty of scrub on it, and here we encamped. Before us rose a great wall of snowy mountains,
with not the very smallest sign of a pass, though the guide said we should have to cross them on the following day. I felt
some misgivings on looking at this barrier which now stopped
our way, for the guide frankly confessed that he had forgotten the way across, and of course there was no sign of a path to
guide us. He said, however, that possibly, as we got nearer, he might remember which turning we should have to take, and with that amount of consolation we had to settle down for the night.
We now had our first taste of real cold. We were about fifteen thousand feet above the sea-level, and as soon as the sun set one could almost see the cold stealing over the mountains—a
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