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 destroyed. 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 Himalayan 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 West

* 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.

ern 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 experienced 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 summer. 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 Himalaya. 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 the south of Kashmír; but the Zanskar men declared that there was no such pass, no passage in that direction and it was at least clearly evident that the habitationless valleys leading that way were so blocked up with prodigious masses of snow, that they had become quite impracticable till next summer. I was thus compelled to proceed northwards, and to strike the road from Leh to Kashmír, and camped that day at a small village near to the great Ringdom Gonpa, or monastery, which I was permitted to enter and examine. From there it took me three easy marches, through beautiful open valleys, to reach the village and fort of Súrú. The first two days were over uninhabited ground; and we camped the first night at Gúlmatongo, where there are some huts occupied by herdsmen in summer. This place is the most advanced post in that direction of the Tibetan-speaking people, and of the Lama religion; for the village of Parkatze, where we camped next night, is inhabited chiefly by Kashmiri Mohammedans, and at

Súrú there are a Kashmírí Thánadar and a military force.

In these valleys there are immense numbers of large marmots, called pia by the Tibetans, from the peculiar sound they make. We shot several of them, and found their brown fur to be very soft and thick. There was no difficulty in shooting them, but some in gaining possession of them, for they were always close to the entrance of their holes, and escaped down these unless killed outright. The people do not eat them, considering them to be a species of rat; and though the skins are valued, this animal does not seem to be hunted. The skins I procured disappeared at Súrú, the theft being laid to the charge of a dog; and though half my effects were carried in open kiltas, this was the only loss I experienced on my long journey, with the exception of a tin of bacon which disappeared in Lahaul, and which also was debited to a canine thief. The Himalayan marmots were larger than hares, though proportionably shorter in the body. They were so fat at this season that they could only waddle, having fed themselves up on the grass of summer in preparation for their long hybernation in winter. They undoubtedly communicate with one another by their shrill cries, and have a curiously intelligent air as they sit watching and piping at the mouth of their subterranean abodes. The marmot has a peculiar interest as one of the unchanged survivors of that period when the megatherium, the sivatherium, and the other great animals whose fossil remains are found in the Sewalik range, were roaming over the Himalayas, or over the region where these now rise.

Shortly before reaching Súrú we had to leave the

bed of the Súrú river, which takes its rise near Gúlmatongo, and had to make a detour and considerable ascent. The cause of this was an enormous glacier, which came down into the river on the opposite (the left) bank, and deflected the stream from its course. Splendid walls of ice were thus exposed, and here also there is likely to be a cataclysm ere long. Súrú is only a dependency of Kashmír, and there were more snow-covered mountain-ranges to be crossed before I could repose in the Valley of Flowers; but at this place I had fairly passed out of the Tibetan region, and without, so far as I am aware, having become either a Lama or a Bodhisavata. I may say that, while it has unrivalled scenery, its people also are interesting, and manage wonderfully well with their hard and trying life.

The Ringdom Gonpa, to which I have just alluded, is, as the Lama monasteries usually are, placed on the top of a hill; and Gonpa literally means "a solitary place." This eminence, which is about 400 feet high, rises out of a waste of level stony ground, and is about two miles distant from the small Ringdom hamlet. After the Pense Pass I was too much fatigued to take any notes regarding it, and can only remember generally its characteristics. A gateway, outside of which there were some large Choten, led through strong stone walls into an open court-yard, round which were the cells occupied by the monks. These, with various offices, occupied three sides of a quadrangle, and on the fourth side was the room for prayer, down the centre of which ran a cushioned double divan, on which the monks were wont to offer up their supplications. Beyond this was the temple, with relic-chambers at