int sounds like distant voices. My men
collected round me, whispered "_Daku! daku!_" (Brigands! brigands!), and
then threw themselves flat on the snow. I loaded my rifle and went
ahead, trying in vain to perceive the enemy in the darkness. I screened
my ear with one hand. Hark!... hark!... Yet another shrill whistle!

My Shokas were terrified. The sound seemed to come from directly in
front of us. We immediately altered our course, wending our way upward
slowly and steadily until we found ourselves at sunrise near the
mountain-top. It was still snowing hard. One final effort brought us to
the summit of the plateau.

Here we felt comparatively safe. Thoroughly exhausted, we deposited our
burdens on the snow, and laid ourselves down close to one another,
piling on the top of us all the available blankets in order to keep
warm.

CHAPTER VIII

HUNGRY FUGITIVES

At 1 P.M. we woke up, drenched to the skin, for the sun, which had come
out after the storm had abated, had thawed the thick coating of snow
over us. The elevation of this camp, according to my aneroids, was
18,000 feet. The wind, from the south-east, cut like a knife, and we
suffered from it, not only on this occasion, but every day during the
whole time we were in Tibet. This wind began to blow with great
fierceness and regularity at one o'clock every afternoon, and it was
only toward eight o'clock in the evening that it sometimes abated and
gradually ceased. Frequently, however, the wind, instead of dropping at
this time, increased in violence, blowing with terrible force during the
whole night.

As we were making ready to start again, with limbs cramped and stiff,
the sky again became suddenly covered with heavy gray clouds, and fresh
snow fell. There was no possibility of making a fire, so we started
hungry and half frozen, following a course of 70 deg. (b.m.). We waded
up to our waists through a freezingly cold stream, and, climbing steadily
higher and higher for a distance of six miles, we at last reached
another and loftier plateau to the north-east of the one where we had
camped in the morning. The elevation of this second plateau was 18,960
feet. I was surprised to find four lakes of considerable size close to
one another on this high tableland. The sun, breaking for a moment
through the clouds, shone on the snow-covered tops of the surrounding
mountains, silvering the water of the lakes, and displaying before us a
wild and beautiful scene.