scending
from the top. About half-way up, on looking back, we saw eight soldiers
galloping toward us. We waited for them; and as soon as they came up to
us, they went through the usual servile salutations, depositing their
arms on the ground to show that they had no intention of fighting. A long
friendly palaver followed, the Tibetans professing their friendship for
us and their willingness to help us to get on in any way in their power.
This was rather too good to be true, and I suspected treachery, all the
more so when they pressed and entreated us to go back to their tents,
where they wished us to remain as their highly-honoured guests, and where
we should have all the luxuries that human mind can conceive showered
upon us. On further specification, these were found to consist of
presents of _chura_, cheese, butter, yak milk, and _tsamba_, and they
said they would sell us ponies if we required them. The description was
too glowing; so, taking all things into consideration, and allowing for
the inaccuracy of speech of my interlocutors as well as of Tibetans in
general, I thanked them from the bottom of my heart and answered that I
preferred to continue my way and bear my present sufferings.

[Illustration: PHANTOM-LIKE VISITORS]

They perceived that I was not easy to catch, and, if anything, they
respected me the more for it. In fact they could not disguise their
amazement at my having got so far with only two men. When I had given my
visitors some little present, we parted at last, in a very friendly
manner.

We climbed up to the pass (18,480 feet), and before us on the other side
found a large stretch of flat land, some two thousand feet lower. I could
see a lake, which I took to be the Gunkyo. Nevertheless, to make certain
of it, I left my men and yaks on the pass and went to reconnoitre from a
peak 19,000 feet high, N.E. of us. There was much snow and the ascent was
difficult and tedious. When I got to the top another higher peak barred
the view in front of me, so descending first and then ascending again, I
climbed this second summit, finally reaching an elevation of 20,000 feet,
and obtaining a good bird's-eye view of the country all round. There was
a long snowy range to the North, and, directly under it, what I imagined
to be a stretch of water, judging from the mist and clouds forming above
it, and from the grass on the lower portion of the mountains.

A hill range stood in my way, just high enough to conc