the camp was struck, and climbed the mountain range on the left bank of the valley to a gap, from which I hoped to get a view of what might be on the other side. But after a stiff climb of nearly two thousand feet, I was only rewarded by seeing the great glacier which flows down from the Gusherbru m and another ridge on the opposite side. Snow was falling, and the view which I had expected to get was hidden by the clouds.
These snow-clouds are remarkable for their soft, fleece-like intangibility. They are formed of very fine powder-like snow, and they softly obliterate a mountain peak while the change is scarcely perceptible. I have seen a peak standing out sharp and distinct before me, and then watched it slowly fade from sight, its outline become first hazy, then more and more difficult to distinguish, till all was of a dull grey hue like the sky around. One of these snow-clouds had settled down upon it, the powdery snow first falling lightly, then heavier and heavier, till the mountain was completely blotted out.
There was, therefore, nothing to be seen from the spur
which I had ascended, and I rejoined my party. We then started off to tackle the glacier, and at first the way was good enough—that is, we could get along at the rate of one and a half mile an hour—and, as things seemed fairly smooth for some way ahead, I went off to make a small exploration of a glacier coming down from the westward. But after tumbling about on it for some time, and getting two nasty falls, I was brought up by a steep ice-fall. I tried to climb the mountainside,' and had got up it for about two hundred feet, clinging to projecting rocks, but when these failed me, I had to give up the attempt, as it was too dangerous to cross the fall by myself without the aid of ropes. So I was again unsuccessful, and making my way back to my party, found them halted in front of a great mass of accumulated ice fallen from the seracs, or ice-pinnacles, above. It was a wonderful sight to look at the great walls and blocks of pure ice, white on the surface, and
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