Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 271 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0271	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. Ix.] THE MUSTAGH PASS. 227

apparent nearness of the pass. Everything

here was on a gigantic scale, and what seemed

to be not more than an hour's walk from the

bivouac was in fact a six hours' climb.

It was nearly midday when we reached the

top of the pass, and what we saw there makes

me shudder even now to think upon. There

was nothing but a sheer precipice before us, and

those first few moments on the summit of the

Mustagh Pass were full of intensest anxiety to

me. If we could but get over, the crowning

success of my expedition would be gained. But

the thing seemed to me simply an impossibility.

I had had no experience of Alpine climbing,

and I had no ice-axes or other mountaineering

appliances with me. I had not even proper

boots. All I had for foot-gear were some

native boots of soft leather, without nails and

without heels mere leather stockings, in fact

—which gave no sort of grip upon an icy

surface. How, then, I should ever be able to

get down the icy slopes and rocky precipices I

now saw before me I could not by any possi-

bility imagine ; and if it had rested with me

alone, the probability is we never should have

got over the pass at all.

Q 2

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