bent and shook beneath our feet, allowing the slabs every now and then to drop out and fall towards the Sutlej, till shattered into innumerable fragments. It was useless attempting to rely on a rope at many of these places, for the men who would have had to hold the rope could hardly have found a position from which to stand the least strain. Indeed, the worst danger I met with was from a man officiously trying to help me on one of these juniper-bridges, with the result of nearly bringing the whole concern down. And if slabs of slate went out from underneath our feet, not less did slabs of slate come crashing down over and between our heads occasionally; for it seemed to me that the whole of that precipice had got into the habit of detaching itself in fragments into the river beneath. I may add, that having sent my servants on in frontto set up my tent and make other preparations in case of Mr Pagell being away, of which I had heard a rumour-I was entirely in the hands of the Súgnam bigarris, of whose Tebarskad I hardly understood a word; and that the July sun beat upon the slate, so that every breath from the rock was sickening. Beneath there were dark jagged precipices and an almost sunless torrent-so deeply is the Sutlej here sunk in its gorge-foaming along at the rate of about twenty miles an hour; above there were frowning precipices and a cloudless sky, across which some eagle or huge raven-like Himalayan crow occasionally flitted.

I saw this footpath in an exceptionally bad state— for it is only used in winter when the higher roads are impassable from snow; and after all the damage of winter and spring it is not repaired until the beginning of winter. But no repairing, short of blasting

out galleries in the face of the rock, could make much improvement in it. It was not, however, the danger of this path which made it frightful to me; that only made it interesting, and served as a stimulus. The mischief was that, in my disabled and weak state, I had to exert myself almost continuously on it for twelve hours in a burning sun. The Súgnam men did all in their power to assist me, and I could not but admire, and be deeply grateful for, their patience and kindness. But the longest day has an end, as Damiens said when he was taken out to be tortured; and we reached Pú at last, my bearers, as they approached it, sending up sounds not unlike the Swiss jödel, which were replied to in similar fashion by their companions who had reached the place before them. Pú is a large village, situated about a thousand feet above the bed of the Sutlej, on the slope of a high, steep mountain. I found that my tent had been pitched on a long terraced field, well shaded with apricot-trees, on the outskirts of the village, and that Mr Pagell, the Moravian missionary, was absent on a long journey he was making in Spiti. Mrs Pagell, it appeared, was living with some native Christians near by, in a house guarded by ferocious dogs; but as she spoke neither English nor Hindústhani, only German and Tibetan, Silas had been unable to communicate with her, and the use of Nurdass as an interpreter had not then been discovered. This was serious news for a man in my condition; but I was in too deathlike a state to do anything, and lying down in my tent, did not make any attempt to leave it until the day after next.

CHAPTER XV.

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

COMPANIONS IN MY ILLNESS-SAND-FLIES-SCORPIONS-SERPENTS—

TIBETAN MASTIFFS-CHINESE TARTARS-A SNOW-BEAR-GROUND
TOO DEAR FOR BURIAL-COR SCORPIONIS.

So soon as able, I staggered up to Mrs Pagell's residence, and explained the position I was in. She at once gave me access to her husband's store of medicines, where I found all I required to treat myself with -calomel, steel, chalk, Dover's powder, and, above all, pure ipecacuanha, which nauseous medicine was to me like a spring of living water in a dry and thirsty land, for I knew well that it was the only drug to be relied on for dysentery. This good Moravian sister was distressed at having no proper accommodation in her house for me; but, otherwise, she placed all its resources at my disposal, and soon sent off a letter to be forwarded from village to village in search of her husband. Considering that, in ten years, Mrs Pagell had seldom seen a European, it was only to be expected that she should be a little flustered, and at a loss what to do; but her kindness was genuine, and I was greatly indebted to her.

I had hoped, by this time, to be leaving the Valley

of the Shadow of Death, its rock heat and its ever-roaring torrent, but had to remain in it for a month longer, lying on my back. I reached Pú on the 4th July, and Mr Pagell did not arrive until the 25th of the month; so that for three weeks, and during the critical period of the disease, I had to be my own doctor, and almost my own sick-nurse. Only those who have experienced acute dysentery can know how dreadfully trying and harassing it is; and the servants of the heroic Livingstone have told how, in the latter stages of it, he could do nothing but groan day and night. Then the ipecacuanha, which I had to take in enormous doses before I could contrive to turn the disease, kept me in a state of the greatest feebleness and sickness. The apricottrees afforded grateful shade, but they harboured hosts of sand - flies, which tormented me all night, while swarms of the common black fly kept me from sleeping during the day. There were numbers of scorpions under the stones around, both the grey scorpion and the large black scorpion with its deadly sting, of the effects of which Vambéry has given such a painful account. Curiously, too, this was the only place in the Himalaya where I ever heard of there being serpents; but long serpents there were-six feet long-gliding before my open tent at night. This was no dream of delirium, for one was killed quite close to it and brought to me for examination; and a few weeks after, Mr Pagell killed another in his verandah. I was far too ill to examine whether my serpent had poison-fangs or not, and was fain to be content with an assurance that the people of Pú were not afraid of these long snakes; but the Moravian found that the one he killed had fangs, and at all events it was not pleasant, even for a half

dead man, either to see them in moonlight, or hear them in darkness, gliding about his tent.

One end of the field in front of me touched on a small forest, which ran up a steep valley and was likely to harbour wild beasts. The position was lonely, also, for I had to make my servants camp a little way off, on the side away from the forest, in order not to be disturbed by their talking and disputing, or by their visitors; and so, weak as I was, they were barely within call even when awake. But I was much disturbed by the singing and howling of a number of Chinese Tartars who had come over the border on a pilgrimage to the Lama temple in Pú. These pious persons were silent all day till about two or three in the afternoon, when they commenced their infernal revels, and (with the aid of potent liquor, I was told) kept up their singing and dancing for several nights till morning. In addition to all this, huge savage Tibetan dogs used to come down the mountain-sides from a Lama nunnery and other houses above, and prowl round my tent, or poke into it, in search of what they could find; and the letting them loose at all was highly improper conduct on the part of the virtuous sisterhood. One splendid red dog came down regularly, with long leaps, which I could hear distinctly; and I had quite an affection for him, until, one night, I was awakened from an uneasy slumber by finding his mouth fumbling at my throat, in order to see if I was cold enough for his purposes. This was a little too much, so I told Silas to watch for it and pepper it with small shot from a distance; but, either accidentally or by design, he shot it in the side from close quarters, killing it on the spot, its life issuing out of it in one grand, hoarse, indignant roar.

K