CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE SNOWY PENSE LA.

AFTER THE STORM-A LOVELY SCENE-NIGHT IN THE WASTE-BEARS -GLACIER AND DEEP SNOW-COL OF THE PASS-DANGEROUS RIDING-EFFECT OF THE SUN-DAZZLING WHITENESS-SER AND MER PEAKS-HIQUEN TSANG'S DESCRIPTION-DESCENT-THE CHILING PASS-DESCRIPTION OF THE RINGDOM MONASTERY— MARCHES.

ON the second morning after our arrival at Phe the storm had entirely passed off, and a council of the villagers was held to determine whether or not we could be got over the Pense La or Pense Pass. I should have been delighted to remain in Zanskar all winter, though not in such an apartment as I have described, but was in a manner bound in honour to my servants to proceed if it were possible to do so; and the villagers were anxious to see us off their hands, for it would have been a serious matter for them had we remained all winter. So, with a strong body of bigárrís and a number of ponies and cows, we started at nine in the morning. The open valley presented a most lovely scene. Pure white snow rose up on either side of it nearly from the river to the tops of the high mountains, dazzling in the sunlight. Above, there was a clear, brilliant, blue sky, unspotted by any cloud or fleck of mist, but with great eagles occasionally flitting across it. Close to the river the snow had melted, or was melting from the grass, displaying beautiful autumn flowers which had been un

injured by it; the moisture on these flowers and on the grass was sparkling in the sunlight. Every breath of the pure, keen air was exhilarating; and for music we had the gush of snow rivulets, and the piping of innumerable large marmots, which came out of their holes on the sides of the valley, and whistled to each other. It was more like an Alpine scene in spring than in autumn, and reminded me of Beattie's lines describing the outbreak of a Lapland spring:

"Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land,

For many a long month lost in snow profound,
When Sol from Cancer sends the seasons bland,
And in their northern cave the storms are bound,
From silent mountains, straight with startling sound,
Torrents are hurled; green hills emerge; and, lo!
The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crowned,
Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling flow."

On reaching the last village, called Abring, it was determined not to stay there, but to camp as high up on the pass as we could reach before nightfall, in order to have the whole of the next day for getting over the deep snow with which its summit is covered. On ascending from the larger valley, we passed through a number of picturesque small vales, and then got on a more open tract, on one side of which, where there were some birch-bushes, we camped at eve. My tent had to be pitched on snow, and I may say that for the next seven days, or until I reached Dras, I was very little off that substance; and for six nights my tent was either pitched on snow or on ground which had been swept clear of it for the purpose. At this camp on the Pense La, darkness came on (there being only a crescent moon in the early morning) before our preparations for the night were concluded. My thermometer sank to 22°, and there was something solemn suggested on looking into the darkness and along the great snowy wastes. My

bigárris were very much afraid of bears, saying that the place was haunted by them; but none appeared.

Starting early next morning, we passed through several miles of thick brushwood, chiefly birch and willow, just before we approached the col of the Pense Pass. A great glacier flowed over it, and for some way our ascent lay up the rocky slopes to the right side of the ice-stream; but that was tedious work, and when we got up a certain distance, and the snow was thick enough to support us, we moved on to the glacier itself, and so made the remainder of the ascent. The fall of snow here had been tremendous. I probed in vain with my seven-feet long alpenstock to strike the ice beneath; but every now and then a crevasse, too large to be bridged by the snow, showed the nature of the ground we were on. I fancy this was the most dangerous ground I rode over in all the Himálaya, for the snow over a crevasse might have given way beneath a horse and his rider; but several of the Zanskar men were riding and did not dismount, so I was fain to trust to this local knowledge, though I did not put any confidence

in it.

Not far from the top of the pass we came upon a beautiful little lake in the glacier, sunk within walls of blue ice, and frozen, but with the snow which had fallen and the upper ice of its surface all melted. For by this time the power of the sunbeams in the rarefied atmosphere, and of their reflection from the vast sheets of pure white snow, was something tremendous. I had on blue goggles to protect my eyes,* and a double muslin veil over my face, yet all the skin on my face was de

* There was another use to which I found goggles could be put. Tibetan mastiffs were afraid of them. The fiercest dog in the Himálaya will skulk away terrified if you walk up to it quietly in perfect silence with a pair of dark-coloured goggles on, and as if you meditated some villany; but to utter a word goes far to break the spell.

stroyed.

After crossing this pass, my countenance became very much like an over-roasted leg of mutton; and as to my hands, the mere sight of them would have made a New-Zealander's teeth water. On my Indian servants the only effect was to blacken their faces and make their eyes bloodshot.

The top of the Pense La is only 14,440 feet high, but it took us a long time to reach it, our horses sinking up to their girths in the snow at almost every step, and the leader having to be frequently changed. We have been told to pray that our flight should not be in the winter; and certainly in a Himálayan winter it would not be possible to fly either quickly or far without the wings. of eagles. The deep dark blue of the heavens above contrasted with the perfect and dazzling whiteness of the earthly scene around. The uniformity of colour in this exquisite scene excited no sense of monotony; and, looking on the beautiful garment of snow which covered the mountains and glaciers, but did not conceal their forms, one might well exclaim

"It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood."

Especially striking was the icy spire of one of the two Akun (the Ser and Mer) peaks, the highest of the Western Himalaya, which rose up before us in Súrú to the height of 23,477 feet. I did not get another glimpse of it; but from this side it appeared to be purely a spire of glittering ice, no rock whatever being visible, and the sky was

"Its own calm home, its crystal shrine,

Its habitation from eternity."

But instead of attempting further description, let me quote an older traveller, and give Hiouen Tsang's description of what he beheld on the Musur Dabaghan mountain as applicable to what I saw from, and expe

rienced on, the Pense La, and still more especially on the Shinkal: "The top of the mountain rises to the sky. Since the beginning of the world the snow has been accumulating, and is now transformed into vast masses of ice, which never melt either in spring or Hard and brilliant sheets of snow are spread out till they are lost in the infinite and mingle with the clouds. If one looks at them, the eyes are dazzled by the splendour. Frozen peaks hang down over both sides of the path some hundred feet high and twenty or thirty feet thick. It is not without difficulty or danger that the traveller can clear them or climb over them. Besides, there are squalls of wind and tornadoes of snow which attack the pilgrims. Even with double shoes and with thick furs one cannot help trembling and shivering."

In front of us immense sheets of snow stretched steeply into a narrow valley, and down one of these we plunged in a slanting direction. It was too late to reach the neighbourhood of any human habitations that night; but we descended the valley for several miles till we came to brushwood and a comparatively warm camping-spot, well satisfied at having got over the Pense La without a single accident. Where I was to go next, however, was a matter of some anxiety; for here the elevated valley theory began to break down, and we were in front of a confused congeries of mountains which must be difficult enough to cross at any time, but tenfold so after such a snowstorm as had just swept over the Himálaya. I felt especially uneasy about those unknown places of which Mr Heyde had said, "they might be a little difficult to get over."

From this point where we now were, I had proposed to go, in a south-westerly direction, over the Chiling Pass, to Petgam in Maru Wardwán, from whence it would not have been difficult to reach Islamabad in