Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 262 (Color Image)

0262	Among the Celestials : vol.1

220 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. IX.

below, would slip and fall and cut their knees

and hocks about in a way which went directly

to my heart. I did not see how this sort of

thing could last. We had only advanced a few

hundred yards, and there were still from fifteen

to twenty miles of glacier ahead. I therefore

halted the ponies for the day, and went on with

a couple of men to reconnoitre. We fortunately

found, in between the glacier and the mountain-

side, a narrow stretch of less impracticable

ground, along which it would be possible to

take the ponies. This we marked out, and

returned to our bivouac after dark.

That night we passed, as usual, in the open,

thoroughly exhausted after the hard day's work,

for at the high altitudes we had now reached

the rarefaction of the air makes one tired very

quickly, and the constant tumbling about on

the slippery glacier in helping the ponies over

it added to one's troubles. My boots were cut

through, my hands cut all over, and my elbows

a mass of bruises.

At daybreak on the following morning we

started again, leading the ponies up the route

we had marked out ; but a mile from the point

where our previous exploration had ended we

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