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Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 |
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we were gaining elevation, the cold growing sharper;
water carried in ice-cakes to provide the dry camps;
fuel in precious bundles on camel-back, two stretches
of four days each being wholly without vegetation.
When we mounted the great Karakoram Pass we
were eighteen thousand three hundred feet above
the sea, the fourth time we had exceeded eighteen
thousand feet since leaving Polu. The route, which
is often designated by naming this pass, is abomi-
nable, but the divide itself, while rough and cold, is
not perilous save when snow-covered. We crossed
without difficulty, but were reminded of the true
merit underlying the reputation given to the spot,
by an almost unbelievable number of horse-skeletons
which blaze the way for more than a day's march
on either side. Where the death-harvest had been
most rich, they could be counted a hundred to the
quarter mile. Legs ridiculously in the air, heads
absurdly ducked between legs, backs broken, backs
curved, necks defiantly lurched upward, rampant,
bodies half set up on haunches, every possible fan-
tastic position was seen, as resultants of three forces
—rigor mortis, gravitation, and vulture. Thus in
regions uninhabitable, death remains the only evi-
dent monument of the transient life that ventures
here.
Throughout the vast length of the Karakoram and
Himalayan ranges Nature seems to have raised these
tremendous masses that here, wrapped in spotless
white, she might sleep undisturbed by her inquisi-
tive progeny, her enfant terrible, restless man. But
in vain. Children of the desert, children of the
delta, led by love of gain, led by lust of war, for
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