Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/43

 objects in one, all the clothing and provisions in the other. The latter he threw down the slope, and it ploughed a path, down which I followed till the load brought up against a rock. Then I let myself slide down the half-hardened snow, guiding myself with my elbows so as to escape any crevasse across my path.

By 3.30 p.m. we had descended so far in the gorge of Chu kyok that patches of grass showed here and there amidst the snow, and I saw an alpine shrub called upala, with large pink leaves at the top like those of the water-lily, waved in the wind, which had again begun to blow. The coolies now pushed rapidly ahead, leaving me far behind, but the gradual reappearance of grass, rhododendrons, and juniper bushes revived my spirits as I walked on, frequently halting to catch my breath. Continuing down the gorge through rhododendrons, junipers, and several species of prickly, sweet-scented shrubs, we finally reached, about dark, a great boulder, underneath which we camped. In front of it ran a brook about four feet wide, said to be the head-stream of the famous Kabili of Nepal, which receives the waters from the Chum-bok and the Semarum mountains.

November 21.—Though I still felt, when I awakened, greatly exhausted, I had to start without breakfast, as the coolies had left early, fearing lest the fine morning might be followed by a bad afternoon. Dressed very lightly in order to be able to climb more easily, I set out, following in Phurchung's footsteps. The trail at first presented no great difficulty, though it was continually up and down over mountain ridges five or six hundred feet high; but our previous day's experience made us think little of such a road. After a few miles we reached a kind of gateway lying between two rocky cliffs, where began the region of scanty vegetation that invariably is found just below the snow-line. Here we halted for a while and drank some tea; then, resuming our journey, we reached the summit of Semarum after a couple of hours of most trying climbing over ice and melting snow. The pass is protected to the south and west by a very rugged cliff resembling the outspread wings of an eagle both in colour and shape, and inspired me with a strange feeling of dread. Sitting on the summit of the pass, I enjoyed, though tired and unwell, the