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312 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
a bottle. Everybody was marching on foot. One of my
boots stuck fast in tlie quagmire, and I went in with my
stocking-foot right up to the knee. Two camels became
exhausted and had to be relieved of their loads, which
were transferred to the backs of horses. At last it was
utterly impossible to advance a step further in that abomi-
nable mire. Right about, march ! The space was so
narrow that each animal had to turn round on the spot
where it stood, so that what had been the head of the cara-
van now marched last. The retreat out of that treacherous
trap was even worse than the entrance into it, for the ground
had been ploughed up still more by all the animals that had
trampled through it. We found a little pass to the west, by
means of which we reached more favourable country. I
sat on horseback at the top of the pass and watched the
whole of the caravan march past. And what a business it
was to get one of the two tired camels over. He had
literally to be pushed up step by step by five men. After
this experience I made it a rule to reconnoitre the country
ahead before starting, and from our next camp Mollah Shah
and Li Loyeh were ordered to go and spy out the land.
The grass at this camp, which was formed around a little
spring, was exceptionally good. At three o’clock we had a
storm, accompanied with snow, from the west, and in the
evening another from the east. I was sitting, working in
furs, and leaning over a brazier. During the night the ther-
mometer dropped to 8.°5 Fahr., and yet this was the middle
of the summer and we were on the parallel of Seville ; but
then we were also more than 13,000 feet above the level of
the sea.
The next day we followed the track of our pioneers,
chmbing steadily into higher regions, and pitched our camp
on the sloping western bank of a big river, the loops of
which were filled with hummocks of ice. The river flowed
at the bottom of a deep cutting, the camp being 75 feet
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