Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 267 (Color Image)

0267	Among the Celestials : vol.1

CHAP. Ix.] A CRITICAL SITUATION. 225

one hundred and eighty miles back through the

mountains with only three or four days' supplies

to support us. We might certainly have eaten

the ponies, so would not actually have starved ;

but we should have had a hard struggle for it,

and there would still have been the range to

cross at another point.

Matters were therefore approaching a critical

stage, and that was an anxious night for me.

I often recall it, and think of our little bivouac

in the snow at the foot of the range we had to

overcome. The sun sank behind the icy

mountains, the bright glow gently disappeared,

and they became steely hard while the grey

cold of night settled shimmering down upon

them. All around was pure white snow and

ice, breathing out cold upon us. The little

pools and streamlets of water which the heat of

the sun had poured off the glacier during the

day were now gripped by the frost, which

seemed to creep around ourselves too, and

huddle us up together. We had no tent to

shelter us from the biting streams of air flowing

down from the mountain summits, and we had

not sufficient fuel to light a fire round which we

might lie. We had, indeed, barely enough

National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books