CHAP. vi.] RECONNAISSANCE OF HUN ZA GUIDES 97
time to work the delicate apparatus of the photo-theodolite. The two Kirghiz who had come up with us. in charge of the yaks had . already complained of headache, and by the time I completed my work succumbed to mountain sickness in that most drastic form affecting the digestive organs. To get from them the needed topographical information was for the time quite impossible. I was watching the snow-covered ridge • by which my Hunza followers had ascended, with some anxiety as the day wore on, when at last by 5 p.m. they returned. Hardy and born climbers as they are, both Wali Muhammad and Ghun looked thoroughly exhausted. They reported that they had climbed in deep snow shoulder after shoulder of the great ridge above until they were stopped by a precipice of sheer rocks descending to a side glacier which separates the ridge they followed from the main mass of the northern peak.
Their account confirmed the doubt which the observation made on the preceding day had left in me as to the continuity of the spur apparently leading to, the summit. High up, at an altitude approximately estimated at 22,000 feet, I had noticed what looked like crevassed masses of ice protruding to the north from below one of the buttresses of the ridge. From the description of my men I was forced to conclude that this ice was in reality the end of a transverse glacier hidden from view by the ridge on which we stood.. Both men described a descent over the cliffs down into the glacier-filled gorge as wholly impracticable, and the ascent on the opposite face giving access to the summit as of equal difficulty. They complained bitterly of the cold they had experienced in the higher part of their ascent and of the difficulty of breathing. Though they had followed closely the line of the cliffs overlooking the Yambulak glacier, they had found no possible place of shelter among the rocks nor even a spot where a small tent could be pitched. Everywhere the snow was too deep and tolerably level space wholly wanting.
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