CHAPTER XI.
Tibet at Last.
After leaving Malba my route lay north-west, up a gradual ascent along the banks of the river Kāligaṅgā. We walked, however, only two and a half miles on the day of our departure, the rain preventing our further progress. Starting at about seven o'clock on the following morning, we made a climb of about five miles up a narrow path, the bed of which consisted of pointed stones and rocks of various degrees of sharpness, and then refreshed ourselves with a light repast. On resuming our ascent the incline became very steep and, the atmosphere growing rarer and rarer, we could proceed no more than six miles or so before fatigue overcame us, and at three in the afternoon we put up in a village called Dankar, where I was obliged to stay and recuperate myself during the whole of the next day. On the 15th we faced due north, and five miles of a sharp ascent brought us to a glacier valley which we crossed, and continued a climb of still steeper incline for about four miles, after which we emerged on a somewhat wide foot-path. At 11 a. m. we stopped for a rest. Not a drop of water was obtainable thereabouts, but espying some herbs growing from under a light layer of snow in a crevice of a rock, I pulled them up by the root, and, on chewing them, found that the root tasted quite sour. With the help of this herb-root we made a little lunch of buckwheat biscuits.
It was all ascent in the afternoon, and a very tortuous task it was; now picking our foothold from rock to rock up a craggy precipice—Mukhala Climb, where it made my head swim to look down into the cañon a thousand feet below—now trusting my dear life to my staff, when caught
