CHAPTER XXXI.

THE GREAT SCHINKAL PASS, OR SCHINGO LA.

THE VALLEY OF STONE AVALANCHES-A HINDÚ DEVOTEE- - THE DREAD MOTHER—RAMJAKPÚK-COL OF THE SCHINKAL-HEIGHT OF THE PASS-HIGHEST ASCENTS-THE REGION OF PERPETUAL SNOW TROUBLE WITH COOLIES — THE WILD HORSEMAN OF

THE GLACIER-A SNOWSTORM.

THE first day of our ascent from Darcha, the last village, was certainly far from agreeable. The route-for it would be absurd to speak of a path-ran up the left bank of the Kado Tokpho, and crossed some aggravating stone avalanches. My dandi could not be used at all, and I had often to dismount from the large pony I had got at Kaelang. Our first camping-ground was called Dakmachen, and seemed to be used for that purpose, but had no good water near. On great part of the next day's journey, granite avalanches were also a prominent and disgusting feature. Indeed there are so many of them in the Kado Tokpho valley, and they are so difficult and painful to cross, that I was almost tempted to wish that one would come down in my presence, and let me see what it could do. They were very like Himálayan glaciers, but had no ice beneath; and an appalling amount of immense peaks must have fallen down into this hideous valley. An enterprising dhirzí, or tailor, well acquainted with the route, was our guide, and the owner of my pony, and I could not help asking him if this were one of the maidan of which Mr.

Heyde had spoken; but he said we should meet one presently, and found one wherever there was a narrow strip of grassy land.

At one place we had to work up the side of a sort of precipice, and met coming down there a naked Hindú Bawa, or religious devotee, who was crossing from Zanskar to Lahaul, accompanied by one attendant, and with nothing but his loin-cloth, a brass drinking-pot, and a little parched grain. He was a young man, and appeared strong and well-nourished. It was passing strange to find one of these ascetics in the heart of the Himálaya, far from the habitations of men; and when I went on without giving him anything, he deliberately cursed both my pony and myself, and prophesied our speedy destruction, until I told him that I had slept at the foot of the Dread Mother, which seemed to pacify him a little.*

The first day and a half were the worst part of this journey over the Schinkal Pass. Its features changed greatly after we reached the point where the Kado Tokpho divides into two branches, forded the stream to the right, and made a very steep ascent of about 1500 feet. Above that we passed into an elevated picturesque valley, with a good deal of grass and a few birch bushes, which leads all the way up to the glacier that covers the summit of the pass. The usual camping-ground in this valley is called Ramjakpúk, and that place is well protected from the wind; but there are bushes to serve as fuel where we pitched our tents a mile or two below, at a height of about 15,000 feet. Towards evening there was rain and a piercing cold wind, with the thermometer at 36° Fahr., and many were the surmises as to whether

*

Kalika, the most inaccessible peak of the holy mountain Girnar, in Kathiawar. It is consecrated to Kali, or Dúrga, the goddess of Destruc tion; is frequented by Aghoras-devotees who shun all society, and are said to eat carrion and human flesh. The general belief is, that of every two people who visit Kalika, only one comes back.

we might not be overtaken by a snowstorm on the higher portion of the pass next day.

In the morning the thermometer was exactly at freezing-point, the grass was white with hoar-frost, and there was plenty of ice over the streams as we advanced upwards. For some way the path was easy; then there was a long steep ascent, and after that we came on the enormous glacier which is the crest of this awful pass. The passage on to the glacier from solid ground was almost imperceptible, over immense ridges of blocks of granite and slabs of slate. Some of these first ridges rested on the glacier, while others had been thrown up by it on the rocky mountain-side; but soon the greater ridges were left behind, and we were fairly on the glacier, where there were innumerable narrow crevasses, many of them concealed by white honeycombed ice, numerous blocks of stone standing on pillars of ice, and not a few rills, and even large brooks, the sun having been shining powerfully in the morning. It was not properly an ice-stream, but an immense glacial lake, on which we stood-for it was very nearly circular; it was fed by glaciers and snow-slopes all round, and it lapped over into the valleys beneath in several different directions.

I was prevented by an incident, to be mentioned presently, from calculating the height of this pass; but as Kharjak, the first village in Zanskar, is 13,670 feet, and it took me the greater part of next day to get down to Kharjak, though I camped this day at least 1500 feet below the summit of the pass, on the Zanskar side, I conclude that the Schinkal cannot be less than 18,000 feet high, and that it may possibly be more. I notice, however, that in the list of heights given by the Schlagintweits, the Schinkal or "Schinku La" is set down.

* Results of a Scientific Mission to India and High Asia, by H. A. and R. de Schlagintweit (Leipzig, 1862), vol. ii. p. 382.

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at 16,684 feet; and the estimate seems to have been made by the unfortunate Adolph Schlagintweit, who was murdered farther to the north. In the early days of the Trigonometrical Survey it was set down at 16,722 feet, but I have been unable to discover whether or not it was one of those heights where sufficient observations were taken. I learn, from the best authority there is on the subject, that reliance cannot always be placed on the accuracy of the heights which have been given by the Schlagintweits. Kharjak is more likely to have been accurately ascertained, in connection with the other observations which were taken in Zanskar by the Trigonometrical Survey; and if that village be 13,670 feet high, it is scarcely possible that the Schinkal or Schingo La can be only 16,684 or 16,722, as that would give a difference between the two points of only 3000 feet, which would not by any means cover the descent we made.

However, even taking the lowest estimate, or 16,684 feet, that is nearly a thousand feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc. Of course the difficulty of breathing at this height was very great; some of my people were bleeding at the nose, and it would have been hardly possible for us to ascend much higher in the then state of the air. Humboldt got up on the Andes to 19,286 feet, and Mr W. J. Johnson in the Himálaya to 19,979 feet, and the Schlagintweits believed they reached the height of 22,259 feet on the flanks of Ibn Gamin in Tibet; but such feats can only be accomplished in very exceptional states of the atmosphere. Higher ascents have been made in balloons, but there no exertion is required. In ordinary circumstances, 18,000 feet, or nearly 3000 feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, is about the limit of human endurance when any exertion is required; and on the Schinkal I had the advantage of a strong sagacious pony, which carried me

over most of the glacier easily enough; but I had a good deal of work on foot, and suffered much more from the exertions I had to make than any one else.

A good deal of confusion has arisen in regard to the name of this pass. In the topographical sheet No. 46 of the Survey (in which only one side is set down, the country beyond being left blank), it is called the Schinkal Pass; but there is another Schinkal or Schinkil Pass set down in the same sheet farther to the west. This latter pass takes over from the valley of the Chandra-Bhaga, near Sauch, into Zanskar, coming down. on the Tema Tokpho valley and the Burdun monastery. It is believed to be more than 18,000 feet; and to avail one's self of this road, one must also pass over the Poat La, which is set down by the Trigonometrical Survey at 18,752 feet. From its being so designated in the topographical sheet, I have continued to write of the pass I crossed into Zanskar as the Schinkal; but the Schlagintweits speak of it as the Schinku La, and Lieut.-Colonel Montgomerie (to whom all Himálayan travellers are so much indebted) informs me that its proper name is the Schingo La, and that sching means "wood," which, no doubt, is the correct rendering; and though there is precious little wood upon this pass, there is just sufficient about Ramjakpúk to give a colour of meaning to the term. In this part of the country the word La is universally used to signify a pass;" and hence the inaccuracy of writing down "the Parang-la Pass," "the Zoji-la Pass."

On reaching the middle of the glacial lake at the summit of the Schingo La, it became quite apparent where its sea of ice came from. On every side were steep slopes of snow or névé, with immense beds of snow overhanging them. It was more like a Place de la Concorde than the basin of the Aletsch glacier in Switzerland; and the surrounding masses of névé rose