Having On A Pair Of Grass Shoes Which Had Already Done One Day's Work, I Had Broken Down About Half Way, And Was Now Nearly Bare-Footed.

I consequently did not arrive till nearly the last of the party, and found the tent pitched and fires lit under a group of large trees, in the wooden village of about a dozen houses, called Sucknez.

It was then getting dusk, and after waiting a reasonable time, we sent out a party from the village to make search for our missing man, while F. and I, lighting a fire almost in the tent door, proceeded to cook our own dinner.

The materials consisted of an unlimited supply of eggs and a box of sardines, hitherto neglected, and despised among the artistic productions of our lost professor. F. superintended the frying of the eggs, and produced a conglomeration of some eight of them, which we pronounced unusually delicious, while I laid the table and looked after the kettle, for we thought it better, under our bereaved circumstances, to knock tea and dinner into one meal. Although we had made a longish march, we managed, with the aid of the kettle and the brandy, to sit up by the light of a roaring pine fire until late, in the hopes of some news arriving of our searching party. None however came, and we went to bed HOPING that the man had lost his way, and FEARING that he had fallen either over the slippery snow-bridge or down one of the many precipices into the torrent.

SEPTEMBER 6. - Morning came, but neither news of our cook nor of the party who went out in his search, and, after breakfast, donning a pair of grass shoes, and provided with some matches and a small bottle of cherry-brandy, I sallied out with the mate on a voyage of discovery. Outside the village I met the searching party, who had been out all through the bitter night, but had found no traces of the object of their search.

Sending a note to F. to dispatch all the coolies to search, I pressed on to the most dangerous precipice of our yesterday's route, and, descending to the torrent, searched about the grass and weeds at the bottom, but without finding any traces. About this place I met three lonely travellers, laden with meal, who had come along the entire path, but had seen no sign of a human creature anywhere. I now gave up our man as lost, but still held on, in a pouring mixture of sleet and snow, which added considerably to the gloom of the scene. Every now and then the old mate, who was in very low spirits, would raise a lugubrious wail at the top of his voice of "Ai Khansaman Jee! Ai Khansaman Jee?" "Oh, cook of my soul! oh, cook of my soul, where art thou?" at the same time apparently apostrophizing the deepest whirlpools of the torrent, while the roar of the waters effectually prevented his magnificent voice from reaching more than a dozen yards from the spot where he stood.

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