Mysterious footprints—Brigand or spy?—Passes and tracks—Intense cold—No fuel—A high flat plateau—Fuel at last!—Two spies in disguise—What they took us for.
In a hurricane of grit and drenching rain we packed up our traps as best we could and again started on our way. I was slightly in advance when, to my surprise, I noticed, some two hundred yards only from camp, a double line of recent footmarks on the snow. Those coming towards us were somewhat indistinct and nearly covered with grit, those going in the opposite direction seemed quite recent. After carefully examining these footprints, I felt pretty certain that they had been made by a Tibetan. Where the footprints stopped, marks in the snow showed that the man had at different points laid himself flat on the ground. No doubt we had been spied upon and watched. My own men had shown many signs of terror ever since we had crossed to this side of the Himahlyas, and were now all anxiously stooping low over these prints and speculating on their origin. Their excitement and fear were strange to watch. Some surmised that the man must be a Daku, a brigand, and that in the evening we should be attacked by the whole band; others maintained that the spy could only be a Sepoy sent by the Gyanema officers to watch our movements. In any case, this incident was held to be an evil omen, and during our march in a N.W. direction along the bank of the river we continually saw the trail. The wildest speculations and imaginations were rife. To the left of us we passed the valleys leading south to the Neway Pass; then a second to the Kats, 230° (b.m.). The bearings were taken from the mouth of the river descending from it, a tributary of the Darma Yangti.
Spied
Six miles from our last camp, at bearings 340°, was the Luway Pass.
We were travelling on flat or slightly undulating barren ground. We waded across another cold river with water up to our waists, and my men became so exhausted that one mile farther we had to halt at 16,650 feet.
The cold was intense, and again we had no fuel of any kind. A furious wind was blowing, with snow falling heavily in the evening. My carriers, half starved, ate a little satoo, a kind of oatmeal, but Chanden Sing, a Rajiput, could not, without breaking his caste, eat his food without undressing. It was two days since he had had his last meal, but rather than infringe the rules of his religion, or take off his clothes in such frigid regions, he preferred to curl up in his blanket and go to sleep fasting.
The doctor left the warmth and comfort of blankets to go and talk with the men, and get their views about weather prospects and the chances of our route. I preferred the comfort of such warmth as I could get in our tent, where the temperature was 28° Fahr., or four degrees below freezing. The snow was lying a foot deep, and it was still falling heavily. The carriers were all attempting to sleep, huddled as close as possible to each other for warmth; they refused to move, saying they would rather die, and we found it convenient to believe them, and get what warmth and sleep we could under blankets in the tent.