EXPEDITIONS AND EXPLORATIONS
down from Kabru and Pundeem and had my tents pitched amongst them.
In the morning it was a little finer and I caught occasional glimpses of the snows, but towards afternoon it commenced raining again and became very bleak and cold, and in going round my camp I found one of my coolies, a Paharia or Nepalese, lying huddled up in a wet heap. He was feeling the elevation and the cold and refused to move, so I placed a stalwart Bhutea on either side of him and made them run him up and down until his blood began to circulate. In a little while he went off and cooked his dinner and was none the worse, but had he been left to himself, he would probably have died in the night. I stayed here for a few days exploring the glaciers. The camp was a wild one surrounded by enormous quantities of débris, and shut in on three sides by glaciers and snows. The wet, misty weather made it still more gloomy, but on the third day the morning was glorious. Not a sign of a cloud was to be seen, and the snows standing up all round against the pale blue of the sky made the scene a magnificent one.
While I was wandering some little way from camp I saw a snow leopard. He was on the other side of a glacial stream, so I could not get very close to him, and as besides I had only a shot gun with me, I contented myself with watching him, and a very pretty and most unusual sight it was. He was playing with a large raven, which kept swooping down just out of his reach, and to see him get on his hind legs like an enormous cat and jump at the bird was worth watching. Suddenly he saw me and went off up the hill at a pace that made me envious. He was a fine specimen, very large and with a beautiful coat, and I wish I had had the luck to bag him.
The weather now cleared up, and I had one of the glorious breaks which occur at intervals during the rains, and crossed the Giucha-la, 16,420 feet, in clear weather, with not a cloud in the sky. The view from the top is superb. Before
55
