it.

As it was, they pushed doggedly on over snow-sodden tracks, that were
speedily converted into drainage rivulets; trailing single file along
the 'devil's pathways' that overhang the Wakhan river,--mere ledges cut
out of the cliff's face, where a false step means dropping a hundred
feet and more into the valley beneath; scrambling up giant staircases
of rock, and glacier _debris_; zigzagging down one or two thousand
feet, by the merest suggestion of a route, only to start a fresh
climb--drenched and weary--after floundering through a local torrent,
rushing full 'spate' from the hills. Such crossings, without bridge or
boat, through streams ice-cold as the glaciers that gave them birth,
formed the most exciting episodes of the day's march. They had at
least the merit of creating a diversion, if a damp and dangerous one.
For the Kashmir baggage ponies, battling helplessly against a current
strong enough to sweep them off their feet, could only be guided and
controlled by showers of stones, and a chorus of picturesque terms of
abuse from their distracted drivers. The Gurkhas, whose irrepressible
spirits kept the rest from flagging, enjoyed these interludes to the
top of their bent; plunging waist-deep into the icy water, shaking
themselves like terriers as they scrambled out on the far side, and
shouting incessantly to each other, or to the terrified animals, till
the cliffs echoed with ghostly voices and laughter.

Along tracks possible and impossible Lenox rode his tireless scrap of a
hill pony, who climbed like a goat, and whose unshod feet picked their
way unerringly even over rocks covered with new snow that gave no
foothold to man or beast. The rest walked; while the baggage ponies
slid and stumbled, and scrambled in their wake with the stupefied
meekness of their kind.

Journeying thus,--now drenched with snow and sleet, now heartened by
rare bursts of sunshine,--through the worst bit of hill country between
Persia and China, they camped at last in the grim Wakhan valley,
rightly named 'the Valley of Humiliation.' To Lenox, the name struck
home with a peculiar force. For his time-saving scheme had failed.
The three marches had not been accomplished in two days. Evil weather,
incessant delays, and the impossibility of hurrying baggage animals
over dangerous ground, had prevailed against him. The valley had
conquered: and for the man remained nothing but stoical acceptance of
defeat, and the 'half of a