200 KARANGHU-TAGH MOUNTAINS CH. XVII
were sheltering, looked doubly miserable. To the dismay of my yak-men I pushed on to the highest of these Alpine meadows, close to where the high detritus walls of terminal moraines were looming through the mist above us, before pitching camp at an elevation of about 12,300 feet. In order to lighten all loads I had left my own little tent behind and instead brought up the Naik's, just six feet square. With my camp cot squeezed into it there remained barely room for a mule-trunk and the smallest of camp tables. But against the rain, which continued well into the night, the shelter was complete, and I soon got accustomed to stowing myself away in so confined a space.
Early next morning the clouds were still low, hiding almost completely the rugged spurs which I knew encircled the head of the valley. Only the huge moraines, stretching down from the south and from both sides of the valley towards our camping-place, showed that we were near the big glaciers sighted six years ago from across the main Yurung-kash Valley. At first thick mist descended and delayed our start on the reconnaissance I had decided upon in spite of the threatening weather. But by half-past eight the Surveyor and myself with a few men were on the move up the moraine slopes to the south-east where I surmised a large ice-filled side valley. The point to be ascertained was whether it could offer a practicable route of access to the head of the Chomsha Valley eastwards.
As soon as we had left the slope covered with grass and moss, progress became very slow. We had to pick our way over accumulations of fissured rock débris lying in the wildest confusion, and the rain of the night had made the surfaces very slippery. Soon the yaks brought behind us for experiment's sake had to be halted, as the barricades of sharp-edged boulders grew too difficult to cross, even for their sure feet. For nearly three hours we toiled on, scarcely realizing at the time in the mist which again enveloped us that we were ascending the rock-strewn surface of an ice stream.
At a height of about 13,600 feet by aneroid we had just surmounted a huge transverse ridge of piled-up rocks,
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