Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 252 (Color Image)

0252	Among the Celestials : vol.1

210 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. VIII.

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 cold

grey crept over them, the running streams

became coated with ice, and as soon as we had

had our dinner we always dined together, to

save trouble and time in cooking—and dark-

ness had fairly fallen, we took up our beddings

from the places where we had ostentatiously

laid them out to mislead any prowling Kanjutis,

and hurried off to deposit them behind any

rock which would shelter us from the icy wind

which blew down from the mountains. I t is a

curious fact, but when real difficulties seem to

be closing around, one's spirits rise. As long

as you have health that is the main point to

look after, but it is easily attained in mountain

travel and provided that you take plenty of

food, difficulties seem only to make you more

and more cheery. Instead of depressing you,

they only serve to brace up all your faculties to

their highest pitch ; and though, as I lay down

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