IMPORTANT TOPOGRAPHIC WORK. 255
deal of country, while I rendered assistance by determining astronomically the positions of the camps in the deep, narrow, stony valleys. In the valley below Camp 139 we saw many yak, which, I was told, belonged to Mariong people and were left unwatched during the winter. The men affirmed also that the track leading down the valley to Mariong was practicable only for men, but this statement was scarcely credible, for it was improbable that
~. the Mariong people would take their herds by a route so circuitous as that by Sanglash and Pilipert.
Soon after leaving Camp 139 we encountered a steep ascent of 2,400 feet to the top of the Furzanuk Pass, which, with its narrow and precipitous zigzag tracks, seen from the opposite side of the valley, appeared practicable for no animals larger than sheep or goats. On closer acquaintance, however, the ground proved not so very difficult. From this pass, 14,800 feet, we had to descend into a valley where several yak were grazing, and thence to ascend about 700 feet to the Yetin Kozay Pass. The topographic work in this neighbourhood was important, and, though the temperature was very low, Ram Singh manfully continued his sketching without suffering from frost-bite.
Setting out from Camp 140 at eight o'clock in the morning for the last day's march to Pilipert, we experienced some inconvenience from the very fine snow which then began to fall, and which froze on my head and moustache, and even on my eyelashes. At the top of Adam Tuamos Pass, 16,050 feet, where the temperature was about — 4° F., or thirty-six degrees below the freezing-point, and a strong wind was blowing, we _boiled thermometers. There was some little shelter from the wind, but, nevertheless, my feet became cold very rapidly, for my woollen socks were so torn and worn and patched and mended, that they were little better than mere
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