Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/241

Rh the bottom, we had every day to melt two buckets full of water for our horses. Then followed the most tedious time of all, the long winter's night! One would have supposed that after the day's work we should have passed it quietly and slept soundly; but this was far from being the case. Our fatigue was of a more than ordinary kind, and we felt a prostration of the whole system which seemed to render sound sleep impossible. The dry rarefied air produced a choking sensation like a heavy nightmare, and our lips and mouths became parched. Our beds consisted of pieces of dusty felt of a single fold, laid on the frozen ground; on these we lay for ten consecutive hours, but unable to enjoy a really good night's rest, and so to forget for a time the hardships which encompassed us.

The days devoted to sport passed more pleasantly, but cold and wind often interfered with our shooting excursions, and sometimes quite put a stop to them. The wind blew every day, and even if not always with the force of a gale it was always sufficient to impede our movements; for, to say nothing of the cold, which obliged us to don ear-protectors, warm gloves, and fur coats, to face the wind would fill our eyes with tears, thus seriously affecting the rapidity and accuracy of our fire. Our hands, too, became so benumbed that we had to rub them before placing a cartridge in the chamber of a breech-loader, and the metal contracted so that we had to