It was, however, a very long way (ninety-eight miles) to the Salt Lakes at Rupshu; he did this journey in two days, and on the second day writes:

"The distance I came to-day was fifty-eight miles; I was nearly dead with fever, and sun and cold, and walking, and riding in a wooden saddle all day."

He spent one day in his tent with fever on the snow-covered plain, but was better next morning and able to get about, and on the following day he started on the return journey, which he accomplished in two marches as before.

After four days spent at Leh with some friends who had turned up, he marched back by the same route, covering 265 miles from Leh to Kangan in twelve days, one of which was a halt at Lama Yuru, where he "slept nearly all day."

Off again

Writing from Baltal on July 1, he comments on the change that has taken place in the Zoji-La in his absence:

"The Pir is a very different-looking place from what it was when I came through it before. Then it was a wilderness of snow, ice, and rocks; now it is the most beautiful pass, hills covered with grass and flowers and shrubs and trees that were before buried in the snow. The snow rivers are very full and furious; nearly lost a pony in one of them; drove him through it and carried saddles, etc., over the snow some way higher up; the pony was rolled over and over and with difficulty came to land. Now that the snow has disappeared, one sees what a quantity there must have been in the pass when I went through, at least 70 or 80 ft. in some places. The Pir is covered with sweet peas and flowers of all colours and shapes, excessively pretty.

"The hills wear a quite different aspect to what they did when I came up. The snow has melted except on a few of the highest peaks, and the grass has grown, likewise the shrubs. The barley and all the corn is in the ear; it was hardly sown when I came, just a month ago. There are waterfalls from nearly every rock, which looks very pretty and the water is such as 'only teetotallers desire or deserve.' The wild roses, white, red, and yellow, are covered with blossoms, and their smell is delicious."

But before he reached Srinagar the orders for his return were cancelled, and we find him shooting in his old haunts round Kangan.