During the exploration of the Saltoro Pass I had lived in a small tent d'abri, not large enough to stand upright in ; and the return to my larger tent with a table and chair was like a return to real civilization. My mind was now set at rest regarding the Saltoro Pass. I should like to have reached its summit, if the fates had been propitious, but I had seen enough to satisfy most people that there was no high-road to India by that way, and I now turned to the exploration of the Shimshal Pass into Hunza.
On September 21 the whole party started down the valley of the Oprang River, and then up the Sarpo Laggo stream to Suget Jangal, one of my camping-grounds on the way to the Mustagh Pass. Near here I again had a sight of that glorious peak K.2. The sun was just setting, and long after the other mountains round had become cold and grey, the warm red hues of sunset were still clinging to this loftiest tower of the Mustagh Mountains. From the spur which I had ascended I could see also the length of the glacier leading up to the Mustagh Pass, and the snowy barrier over which it leads. When two years before I had painfully struggled up, I had thought I should never set eyes on it again, but here once more it lay before me, and I pictured to myself each little incident in that hard tussle with the mountains.
Descending the spur, I found the caravan was still far behind. Darkness had come on, and Suget Jangal, the only spot in the valley where grass and firewood could be obtained, was still some miles distant. The caravan did not know where I was, and I did not know where the caravan was, except that it was not above me in the valley, and must therefore be below. So I employed a means of signalling which was of the greatest service to me on this occasion. This was a piece of magnesium wire which I lighted, and so at once attracted the attention of my men far away down the valley, and as they came near enough they answered with the whistles which had been served
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