National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
1887.] IN A SEA OF ICE. 193
them to the ground. So I stayed behind with the ponies, while two men went on to find a way through the obstacles before us. The men returned after a time, and said they could find no possible way for the ponies ; but they begged me to have a look myself, saying that perhaps by my good fortune I might be able to find one.
I accordingly, with a couple of men, retraced my steps down the edge of the main glacier for some little distance,
till we came to a point where it was possible to get ponies on to the glacier and take them into the middle of it. We then ascended a prominent spot on the glacier, from which
we could obtain a good view all round. We were in a sea of ice. There was now little of the rocky moraine stuff with
which the ice of the glacier had been covered in its lower
part, and we looked out on a vast river of pure white ice, broken up into myriads of sharp needle-like points. Snowy mountains rose above us on either hand, and down their sides
rolled the lesser glaciers, like clotted cream pouring over the lip of a cream-jug ; and rising forbiddingly before us was the cold icy range we should have to cross.
This was scarcely the country through which to take a caravan of ponies, but I made out a line of moraine extending
right up the main glacier. We got on to this, and, following it
up for some distance, found, to our great relief, that it would be quite possible to bring ponies up it on to the smooth snow
of the névé at the head of the glacier. Having ascertained
this beyond a doubt, we returned late in the afternoon towards the spot where we had left our ponies. Darkness overtook us before we reached it. We wandered about on the glacier
for some time, and nearly lost our way ; but at last, quite worn out, reached our little caravan once more.
That night we held a council of war as to which of the two Mustagh Passes we should attack. There are two passes, known as the Mustagh, which cross the range. One, to the
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