as near death as a man can look, but I hope that this was only due to his still feeling it oppressively warm.

We began by mounting the easy slopes of an apparently interminable hill, but after a couple of hours' steady climbing the sky became overcast, thunder began to rumble, and a few heavy drops of rain to fall. We still pushed on, and the easy slopes gave way to a very rugged ascent, and the rain turned to a flurry of sleet. Higher still the sleet became blinding, driven horizontally by a furious wind, and we thought it time to call a halt.

Just where we stopped was a long narrow slit, or crevice, between two walls of rock, jammed into which we found another party of pilgrims, weather-bound like ourselves. It consisted of two men, two children, and a woman with a baby about a week old. They had huddled together as far in as possible, and were evidently prepared for a prolonged stay, for one of the men had rolled a dry log up to their feet and set one end of it alight. They let as many of us join them as space would admit, and there we sat for the next two or three hours while the thunder rolled, the snow fell ever faster, and the cold increased. Finally, our followers strongly recommended us to abandon all impedimenta, such as rifles, fieldglasses, haversacks, &c., and try to get downhill again while it was yet possible, for they felt certain that the storm would last for hours, and that

not possibly come up to where we were. It seemed the best thing to do under the circumstances, as we were soaked to the skin and numb with cold, and we begged the other party to accompany us, promising to help them all we could. They declined, however, and said it was impossible for the children to face the weather, and so they would stay where they were till it improved. They had their food and blankets; a lump of ice, placed near the smouldering log, was melting drop by drop into a drinking vessel to supply them with water, and they would be "all right." It seemed hard-hearted to leave them, but they so evidently knew what they were about that we started off, leaving with these total strangers, whom we never saw again, all sorts of portable property, some of which, at least, must have seemed tempting to them; but not a single article did they touch. When we returned they had gone forward, but we found all that was ours under the snow.

We now had a decidedly unpleasant descent to make, and at the very beginning, I regret to say, our highlander, Matallabi of Baklood, deserted us in the most shameless way; for evidently thinking that if any one was to be saved it must be Baklood himself, he plunged headlong down the steep slopes and was instantly swallowed up in the whirling snow, in spite of our angry shouts ordering him to turn and come back to us. The other men, of course, stuck to

us like bricks, sustained our falling feet, and kept us, approximately, in the right way. We had but one happy moment during this retreat. Fortune then suddenly brought us so close to Matallabi that we witnessed him take a real imperial crowner over a hidden rock, heard his cry of anguish and despair as he landed (unfortunately) on soft snow bank, and saw him pick himself and his pipe out of it and flee downhill again without a look behind.

I may as well state here that, when subsequently reproved for his unseemly behaviour on this occasion, he said it wasn't the slightest good to speak to him about it. Fear had nothing to do with his somewhat hasty movements-a Matallabi of Baklood knew not fear. What really happened was that his anxiety for the Sahibs' safety became

overwhelming that his reason tottered, and after that he didn't know what he did. He certainly was an old rascal. This little misadventure ended by our finding our followers sheltering in a snug cave or two a long way down the hill. We cowered in another till the weather cleared, when a little wet wood was gathered and a most welcome cup of tea prepared.

Next day we tackled the Pass again.

This time the women started in front of us, and, on seeing them, we felt confident that weather conditions must be favourable. Having recovered the property we had abandoned during the storm, we continued

the climb in their company. Suddenly I said to Addington, "Good heavens! the unfortunate girl in front of me has the most dreadful asthma you ever heard, or else it is double pneumonia. Listen."

He listened and agreed. At each inspiration the air entered the poor woman's lungs with a dreadful whistle,—almost a sob, long-drawn and frameracking. I closed up to her and said, "Are you ill?" "Very ill," she replied, though she didn't look it, her complexion being all cream and roses. It then dawned on me that the next

woman was labouring under the same agonising complaint, and the next, and the next. In fact, they all had asthma and double-pneumonia, and were whistling and sobbing at every step. And then I suddenly remembered that some hill-folk indulge in this way of drawing breath during steep ascents. It may be, and they say it is, comforting to them, but it is very distressing to the sympathetic European who hears hears them. Addington turned to the first woman and said, "You are not at all ill.” "Not at all," she answered. She was a very polite girl, and quite determined to agree with anything a

Sahib said, whether she understood it or not.

We were now at the top of the hill, and at the beginning of the Pass proper. We emerged abruptly from the rock stairway up which we had been climbing and saw in front of us an enormous stretch of snow. It must have been

& razor

backed

ridge when uncovered, and I fancy the actual ridge itself was too rugged to walk along, for our track lay parallel to but some fifty feet below it. A deota or shrine stood by the last rock, and every man, as he arrived, cast down his load and went up to it to make his obeisance and lay his little votive offering on the ground in front. Humble little offerings they were a few grains of rice as a general rule, a pinch of barley meal, or even couple of mountain flowers. The oblation offered, offered, they gathered in groups and passed the social pipe from mouth to mouth before continuing the march.

a

The sky now became suddenly black, the wind rose, the thunder growled-in fact, all the now familiar preliminaries of yesterday's blizzard began to repeat themselves; so there was no time to be lost, or we should be caught in a far more exposed place than we had been in before. We hoped that all our people were close up; but on counting but on counting heads found that half a dozen, including both our servants, were missing, and our glasses soon picked them out a good 1500 or 2000 feet below, advancing at a most leisurely pace, and making heavy weather of it owing to the depth of the snow and the steepness of the ascent. The delinquents, in spite of our warning to lose no time on this particular day of all all days, had evidently dallied even longer than usual over their breakfast before leaving camp. It didn't seem possible

for them to get up to us before the storm broke; so we tossed up to settle which should wait for them, and which should go on with the main body of coolies, who were now ready to move off again. It fell to me to go forward; and I reluctantly left Addington, thinking that I should not see him again that day. However, the coin had decided the question, and off I went. Our men moved out in single file very slowly and cautiouslyeach one, as he reached the open slope, putting his feet in exactly the same dints in the snow as his predecessor. The last man had an awkward load, and was evidently frightened. Before he had gone thirty yards he missed putting his foot into the proper place, and fell. Luckily he fell forward, and lay still until our shikarries reached him and put him on his feet again. However, his nerve had now gone : he lamented bitterly that he had no grass shoes, and said he dared not go any farther. I then told him that I would "see him across (a very inefficient shepherd, had he but realised it); and it seemed to comfort him to know not only that I was following all the way only one step behind, but also that I shared his hard lot in not being the possessor of grass shoes either.

It was a grisly passage. I don't mind standing on high places or looking down precipitous ones; but that length of steep snow-slopes that ran in one awful, smooth, unvarying sweep thousands of feet down on our right hand to

the pines below, which looked liked pigmy trees owing to their distance, made me conjure up all kinds of thoughts of missing the next hole, of putting my foot instead on to the unbeaten snow which had been frozen so hard by yesterday's storm, and then of glissading away and away down that slope of death. The same idea evidently possessed my "file leader." He constantly made a partly false step, and then fell and lay. He had to lie, because I at once put all the weight I could spare on to his back to keep him quiet till my shikarry, who walked a step in front of him, passed back his long staff for the laden man to cling to cling to while he rose.

There was a good threequarters of a mile of this, and as our rate of progress was about half a mile an hour, it seemed endless. But all the time my mind was brooding over the task that lay before Addington. If I found it difficult to help a frightened hillman over, what would be his task in conducting my servant across? As a matter of fact, he had no trouble at all. The "sheep's" intellect was too slow to scent any danger in nice smooth white snow, and he plodded across it without a tremor. This was a great piece of luck, and another was that the storm, after giving us one or two short snow squalls, passed suddenly away; so Addington had not long to wait, and about an hour after I had got out of the Pass he rejoined me.

This, I suppose, was the moment of our greatest elation.

Like the Peri who sang in her joy that "heaven was won," we, too, felt that our task was done. After weeks of fruitless essay, the Pass was behind us, the barrier was surmounted, and a few days more would see us marching into that country whose name I am not going to give you.

So with light hearts we dropped downhill for some miles, until we came suddenly to the head of a large open valley and were told that the march was done. The snow lay too deep all round to pitch tents in comfort. So we persuaded our reluctant and weary carriers to go a little farther to a minute patch of emerald grass which had lately shaken off its winter coat of white.

On that emerald sward we raised our tents, and, little as we could foretell it, on that emerald sward we were destined to spend the whole of the rest of our leave, for it was the "NOWHERE" to which I have been leading you all this time.

The place had not even a name. We called it "Talso," but it was not the real Talso, which was miles farther back, and

none of our followers would recognise it as such.

And now I must explain how it was that, at this particular place, the impetus which had carried us so far died away and left us stranded. When we started to cross the Pass, it was on the understanding that our carriers, who had already come three marches with us, should not be asked to go farther than that day's stage. We should then be out