n watching attentively from a distance the
different phases of the interview, considered it prudent to beat a hasty
retreat, and, mounting their steeds with unmistakable dispatch, galloped
pell-mell down the hill, and then along the valley of the river, until
they were lost to sight in the mist, while the poor ambassadors, who had
been unable to rejoin their ponies, followed as quickly as possible under
the circumstances, considering the rarefied air and rough ground.

Their cries of distress, caused by fear alone, for we had done them no
harm, served to strengthen the contempt in which my men by now held the
Tibetan soldiers and their officers.

The scene really was comical, and I made as much capital as I could out
of it, laughing with my companions and ridiculing to them the supposed
valour of Tibetans.

When the Tibetans were out of sight, Chanden Sing and I pocketed our
pride and helped Mansing to collect the dried dates, apricots, the pieces
of _chura_, butter and _guram_. Then having loaded our yaks we marched
on.

CHAPTER LVI

Rain in torrents--A swampy plain--The sun at last--Our yaks
stolen and recovered.

WE were not in luck. The weather continued squally in the morning, and in
the afternoon the rain was again torrential. We went towards 78 deg. over
uninteresting and monotonous grey country with a chain of snowy peaks
stretching from South-West to North-East. We waded through a fairly deep
and very cold river, and subsequently rose over a pass 17,450 feet. A
number of Hunyas, with flocks of several thousand sheep, came in sight,
but we avoided them. They did not see us.

At the point where we crossed it, the main stream turns in a graceful
bend to 140 deg. (b.m.). We climbed over hilly and barren country to an
altitude of 17,550 feet, where several small lakelets were to be found,
and, having marched in all fourteen and a-half miles in a drenching rain,
we descended into a large valley. Here we had great difficulty in finding
a spot where to rest for the night. The plain was simply a swamp, with
several lakes and ponds, and we sank everywhere in mud and water. All our
bedding and clothes were soaked to such an extent that it really made no
difference where we halted; so we pitched our little tent on the banks of
a stream coming out of a valley to the North, from which, extending in an
easterly direction, rose a series of pyramidal mountains, covered with
snow, and all of almost equa