It is clear that he was enjoying himself thoroughly, that he felt no impatience to return to civilisation, and that he considered his march to Leh and back very much worth doing, for at the end of July he started on another extended tour. It is about 120 miles from Kangan to Skardo, about 200 thence to Leh, and about 250 from Leh to Srinagar, so that he added another 570 miles to his score in the fifty days between July 28 and September 15. Leaving the Sind River by the tributary valley to the north called Wangat, he crossed into the valley of Tylel by a little-known route "said to have been a track made by a gang of horse dealers who came from Tylel into Kashmir years ago." There were two very steep hills, of which the coolies only managed to accomplish the first.
Turning north-east, he made his way across the plains of Deosai, but there was a difficult pass to negotiate before he descended into the valley of the Indus. On August 7 he writes:
"Got up early and started for Skardo. Got to the top of the ridge in about an hour, all snow and ice, great trouble to get the ponies over the glacier, as it was a nearly perpendicular sheet of ice—they slid down most of the way. From the bottom of the glacier there is a descent of about eight miles down the valley, which opens out into the plain of Skardo. Skardo consists of a number of villages scattered over a stony plain covered with apricot-trees which yield great quantities of fruit. The plain is surrounded with high rocky hills, no grass or trees on them. The Wazeer is an old man with long grey beard, uncle to the present Wazeer Labjar of Ladak, who was formerly Wazeer here. His name is Myraram, he came to see me on my arrival, bringing a large basket of apricots as a present."
A snow pass
The last sentence is a sample of many entries, for wherever he went he made friends with the headmen of the village, and he seems nowhere to have been in difficulties about supplies. As it is unlikely that the Hindustani of the plains of India would be understood in Thibet, he must either have mastered working fragments of the dialect, or he must have talked Persian with the more educated natives. Later on he says: "Met some Tartars who had been to Simla, and had a long talk with them." And in another place: "Had a long talk with a Sepoy who was in one of the four regiments sent by the Maharajah to assist in the capture of Delhi, and saw General Nicholson fall."
Three officers of the 11th Hussars came in to Skardo the day after Gatacre's arrival, and fired him with the desire to see Shigar, a town a few miles higher up the Indus, where they had seen the original game of polo.
After five days' halt at Skardo, Gatacre started on his return journey, via Leh. Both Skardo and Leh are on the Indus: he did not, however, follow the course of this river, but chose to make his way up the valley of the Shyok. This necessitated a passage over the Indus at the junction of the two streams on the second day's march, which he thus describes:
"Started at daybreak, and reached this at 6 o'clock. Crossed the river at Kiris on twelve mussocks fastened together by eight bamboos or thin sticks—the luggage in the centre, I on one side, Collassie on the other, and two steerers at one end, who steered with long sticks. When they got into the middle of the stream they began their tarnasha, namely, turning the raft round and round like a top by digging their sticks deeply into the water."
Two days later he crossed the Shyok in the same manner, and found the stream "very fast and furious," although it was half a mile across. It is difficult to picture these watercourses, which, with the manners and appearance of mountain-torrents, have the volume and grandeur of mighty rivers. After following the Shyok for about fifty miles, he left it at Paxfain, and turned southwards along the side-stream which leads up to the Chorbat-La, a pass 16,696 ft. above the sea. Writing that evening, he says: