8th September. The night was bitterly cold. I could not sleep; experienced much oppression of chest, and could not contrive to keep my feet warm, all I could do—three pair of worsted socks on, drawers and trowsers, double blanket, felt namba, and flannel jacket and mackintosh over that, on the foot of the bed. In the night I got flannel trowsers, and wrapped my feet in them, but produced no warmth. The frost was very sharp, the stream turned to ice. The sun, however, was bright and cheery, and under its genial influence all were in good spirits. After breakfast we hunters started in advance. We soon saw a herd of antelope. But they also saw us, when we reached a low hill, behind which they slowly retired. I went after them with Subhan, and opened them about three hundred yards off. They soon increased that to four hundred, when some five or six being grouped together, I took a shot at them with Whitworth, and the bolt only just cleared their backs by an inch or so. Off they scudded, and I fired the Enfield, both balls seemingly falling right amidst them, but stopping none.
We crossed the plain where, on coming, we were so fortunate, bucks jumping up under our very noses. Now we just caught a glimpse of some in the distance, which were off at once. A piercing blast, blowing off the snowy Karakorum, met us in the teeth, cutting us through and through. I never felt anything like it. It seemed to enter my eyes, and wither my brain. My nose and lips were in a terrible state. Moving on, head down, I was aroused by Subhan's signal, and saw in front, in a watercourse we were about to descend, five antelope apparently asleep. I dismounted, and strove to get at them; but, the ground offering no covert, no nullah, they soon saw us, and away they sped into space. I now walked on, and descended into the wide interminable shingle plain, stretching from the base of the Karakorum. On turning an angle, I saw something move. It was a miserable horse left here to linger out its last moments in agonies. Two days, I suppose, it must have lingered, deserted by the unfeeling owner, a Bokhara man, who had passed us at Sugheit. He must have suffered heavy loss, as we have already passed eight or nine of his dead horses. The throats of the others had been mercifully cut. I put this poor animal to rest with a bullet in his brain.
Hence, on to our former bleak and dreary camp ground, the wind if possible more keen as we neared its primary source. I was glad to dismount, and wrap my head in a blanket, turning my back to this inhospitable blast. Soon up came Buddoo, the trusty, ever-cheerful, quiet Buddoo, and not very long after, the invaluable, energetic Abdoolah; and all the coolies came in by dusk. I have resolved, in consequence of our very limited quantity of rations, to make a short march to-morrow, though Sunday, to a place in the middle of the Karakorum gorge, where I hope to find a little sprinkling of grass, as we saw many antelope there, on coming through. This will give us an easy march over the pass to a spot beyond the wretched charnel-house, where we camped last time, and lost our first horse—offering the important advantage of a bite or two of grass, and, I think, fuel. I ordered a sheep to be killed, intending to regale my servants and shikarries with flesh, the better to enable them to stand the cold—an addition to their simple farinaceous diet most acceptable. Resorting to every possible precaution to promote warmth, I put on three flannel shirts, one amazingly thick, drawers, flannel trowsers, flannel coat, nightcap tied on by a voluminous merino neckcloth also encircling my throat, and on my feet, my principal place of suffering, three pair of woollen socks, then over all a woollen gun-cover, in which my feet are inserted, then the long ends folded round and secured. Thus clad, with double blanket, felt ditto, mackintosh, and warm choga enveloping me, I may surely hope for enough of caloric for comfort and repose; though that terrible wind is howling its menaces, and the frost set in hard. I wish I was safe in the Lobrah valley. Well, well, a few days—say seven—and we shall (please God) be at Chanloong; formerly, how despicable a place! now, how ardently longed for!
9th September. Sunday. A very indifferent night; my feet numbed and chill, in spite of all my manifold coverings; my lungs much oppressed, and continually calling me to consciousness by a sense of impending suffocation. On the sun's rays being distinctly recognised by the growing transparency of my tent, I emerged from my many wrappers. The outer atmosphere was intensely severe; ice everywhere it was possible; and a wind that found its way to one's marrow. My tent had been well secured at foot to exclude this assailant, as also, by-the-bye, the poor goats, which, unhappy sufferers, made several efforts to repeat their invasion of Friday night, when two of them established themselves under my bed, driven to this bold intrusion by the severe cold, and little Sara, as though in appreciation of their sufferings, and compassionating them, offered no opposition. Nor should I have taken measures to exclude them, poor things! but that they kept me awake by their constant restlessness and unusual noises.
I attempted to be, and to look, cheerful—on the Mark Tapley principle. My attendants looked very black and pinched. No wonder; there is some difference between this temperature and that of their fervid plains. At breakfast Abdoolah told me, that the party generally would prefer halting here to-day, as they needed rest. The coolies wanted to mend their boots, and promised to go through to the halt I had designed to-morrow. He observed, too, that the flour was all but out, and as the Yarkand kafila would come up to-day, we could indent upon them for their promised contribution. I had no objection at all to remaining; on the contrary, it would enable me to maintain my Sunday practice, proposed to be interrupted only on necessity.
I passed the day within, reading and writing; received report of the death of a horse, knocked up yesterday, one with a dreadful sore back, which I had remarked, and predicted its certain death. The Bhooties in attendance on the horses cannot be induced to look after them, or attempt to remedy the effects of the saddle-galls, by mending or altering, or applications of any sort. The loss will be theirs and their employers', as I have explained to them, with repeated injunctions to look after the animals; but all in vain. The Yarkandies came up in the afternoon. Abdoolah went to beg, and only succeeded in obtaining twenty-six seers of atta. I was angry with him for having either deceived me as to the quantity of flour in hand, on my making particular enquiries on Monday, or for having exceeded the proportion of issues he had then told me was necessary daily, having led me to expect that we had ten days' supply, when here on the sixth we were consuming the last day's rations. He made some unintelligible explanations of having omitted in his estimate some of the Bhooties who had hitherto subsisted on their own provision; but all this should have been correctly ascertained. I suspect that Abdoolah, in his anxiety to prevent my prosecuting my intended inroad into the Yarkand territory, rather exaggerated our resources, or under-reckoned our wants knowingly—a very grave fault in our circumstances. But we have the provisions, written and sent for, to hope and expect. Kamal is a thoroughly trustworthy messenger, and will be probably fallen in with at Bursey or Moorgaby.
The thermometer this morning at 7 A.M. was six degrees below freezing in my tent.
10th September. While yet dark, poor shivering Buddoo came in to take out bullock-trunk and chair for the coolies, now ready to start. Oh! how cold the rush of external air! The tent again closed, I enjoyed a sort of sense of comfort by comparison, and waited till the first appearance of dawn; then speedily got ready, and, muffled up, moved off. All the streams, though rapid, were frozen over thickly. I tramped on as fast as the rough shingle and a pair of new ammunition-boots, of great strength and corresponding hardness and stiffness, allowed me. A gentle ascent of some eight miles, I think, had to be surmounted ere we reached the actual pass of the Karakorum, and this up a valley or river-way. Having gained partial warmth after two hours' walk, and my boots chafing, I mounted, and took Sara before me. But, though the sun was now illuming this valley, the frost did not yield, and my moustache and beard were firmly united in a mass of icicles from my congealing breath, so that it was inconvenient (to use no stronger term) to open my mouth, as it needed the parting or extraction of some hairs to effect. With every contrivance to wrap them up, and with two pair of woollen gloves—one, certainly, all rents—my hands became so painful I could no longer keep poor little Sara under my cloak before me, so set him down; and, soon after, we made a turn to the left, opening the pass, from the snowy peaks of which came rushing an icy blast that quite curdled my blood. My eyes ached, my brain seemed congealed, and a pain in my back and side, and every now and then a gasping for breath, completed my misery. I was soon obliged to dismount, in spite of sore feet, to endeavour to restore the circulation by walking as rapidly as possible. But the difficulty of breathing was terrible. On I struggled, until a bend to the right into a narrow ravine presented itself, whose lofty banks gave some promise of shelter from this killing blast. For this I hastened; and, finding a little nook in a bank, down I threw myself, lifting my face to the sun, and so sought, and soon found, partial relief.
The shikarries came up, and we were all, I should think, half an hour before attempting a remark. Then, having thawed a little, we could find an objurgation or two against the country and climate. My breakfast bundle unfolded displayed milk frozen in bottle to a lump—tea, ditto. This was enveloped in a thick blanket, and carried on a man's shoulder. It was soon liquidized in the sun. I remained an hour or so basking: then, the worst over, away and up over the pass, and down, down into the valley beyond, where the temperature under the sun's increased power was tolerable. We passed the former halting-place, Pulu, and, after resting an hour, continued our course to Dupsang, where we chose our camp on an extensive plain, with a scanty patch or two of grass. The effects came up late, coolies later; but all got in. I determined to start the coolies very early, and leave, myself and mounted party, at 8.30, after breakfast, to give the horses more time to get a bite of grass.