Yuzbashi Mahomed Zareef Khan, had been deputed to receive our envoy at
the frontier, and to give him a hearty welcome. After a rest of four
days, the whole expedition, advancing in two bodies over the Grim Pass,
Sanju Devan, entered the inhabited territory of Sanju. Here Hadji Torah,
who had been travelling "post" after them from India, caught them up,
and by his tact and real friendship for this country, contributed
greatly to the complete success of the mission. The passage of the Grim
Pass, although accomplished with success, was no easy task. Dr. Bellew,
in his book "Kashmir and Kashgar," gives the following graphic
description of it, which may be quoted with advantage as showing some of
the "obstacles of nature" to the advance either of an army or a caravan
in this quarter:--

"The scene which now burst upon our view is one not easy to describe,
still less to forget. Immediately on either hand, like the portals of a
gate, stood bare banks of silver grey slate, which gently spread away on
each side into the slopes that, inclining together, formed the theatre
of the spectacle they limited. And immediately in front commenced that
gentle rise over slabs of slate _debris_--the natural dark hue of which
was lost in the bright sparkle of its abundant mica--which led at once
on to the field of our vision. Here, at the foot of the ascent, one
step took us from the tiresome monotony of the bare rocks behind, with
all their dulness of hue, on to the snow, which overspread all before
with a white sheet of the most dazzling brilliance. On the left and on
the right it spread with uniform regularity to the crests of the
bounding ridges in those directions; whilst in front, it rose up as a
vast wall, whose top cut the sky in a succession of sharp peaks with a
clearness of outline rarely witnessed. And above all, stretched the wide
expanse of heaven, with a depth unsearchable, in the speckless purity of
its azure, and with a calm such as often precedes the storm. Wonderful
was the scene!"

Such is the description of an eye-witness of this striking scene, which
in its solemnity approached the sublime, in its grandeur the terrible.
The last hundred feet of the ascent was a sheer wall of ice, like the
Matterhorn, and up this the troopers' horses, and the baggage mules and
ponies, had to be lifted by human force. More than a whole day was
occupied in surmounting this obstacle alone, but it was surmounted with
the small loss of eight m