The Path Gradually Led Us Through Rocky
Passes, Over Torrents Spanned By Snow Among The Magnificent Mountain
Range; And Although
The march was, rather long for a hill country,
we found no fault with it until about the last three
Kos, when it
was getting late in the day, and although fast becoming hungry,
we saw no immediate prospect of getting anything to eat.
The last few kos we find invariably longer than their fellows;
one kos by DESCRIPTION, at this stage of the proceedings, being
generally equal to two in reality. Asking a native, how far we are
from a halting-place, is invariably answered in one of two ways:
either THOREE DOOR, not very far, or NUZDEEK, close. THOREE DOOR means
generally about four miles, while NUZDEEK may be translated five at
least. A kos too, which ought to be from one and a half to two miles,
means here anything between one mile and seven. Delaying as much as
possible, to let our servants up, we reached Pandras at last, and
found all the inhabitants turned out to see our arrival; they were
dressed in long woollen coats and sheepskins, and looked something
between Russians and Tartars, with a strong flavour of the Esquimaux,
as depicted by Polar voyagers. As the sun went down it became bitterly
cold, and we found the natives even, shuddering under the influences
of the snowy wind, which, setting in from the mountains, appeared to
blow from all points of the compass at one and the same time. What
the village of Pandras must be in mid-winter it is hard to imagine,
so covered with snow as the mountains around it are even in August,
and so bleak and so barren the valley in which it is situated.
In spite of the cold, we astonished the entire swaddled population
by taking off our clothes, and bathing in a little crystal stream
close by: two operations, in all probability, which they themselves
had never perpetrated within the memory of the oldest inhabitant,
This feat accomplished, we were much astonished by the arrival of a
RARA AVIS, in the shape of a British traveller, from the direction
of Ladak. He turned out to be an officer of the Government survey,
now being carried on in the mountains, and we took the opportunity
of deriving from him all the information we could, relative to the
prospect before us. He strongly recommended us to go to the monastery
of Hemis, beyond Ladak, and also to the Lakes, but the latter would
appear to be beyond the limits of our time. The only natives we had met
during our unusually long march to-day, were four hairy-looking savages
from the interior, from whom, after much difficulty, I succeeded
in purchasing an aboriginal tobacco-pouch, flint, and steel, all
combined in one, paying for the same about three times its actual and
local value, viz. two rupees. They were dressed in long woollen coats,
with thick bands of stuff rolled round their waists; and all four had
bunches of yellow flowers stuck in their caps, and pipes, knives,
tobacco-pouches, &c. hung round their girdles.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 56 of 158
Words from 28609 to 29137
of 82277
