EXPEDITIONS AND EXPLORATIONS
never to be forgotten, which amply rewarded me for any hardships or privations I had to undergo to achieve my object.
To show how fickle the climate can be in the proximity of these perpetual snows, I went to bed that night in perfect weather, to be awakened later by the collapse of my tent. A sudden snowstorm had come up, and soon, before any one had noticed it, the weight of the snow became so great every pole of my tent broke and I was buried underneath. Fortunately a little table by my bed saved me from the weight of the canvas and gave me some breathing space, so, as it was very cold, I remained where I was till the morning, when my men could come to clear up the débris. By that time the weather was again perfect, and such is the power of the sun at those altitudes, the new snow soon disappeared, but as it had made everything rather uncomfortable, we decided not to move camp that day.
We were now really entering unexplored country, as I wished to go down the Kangchen glacier to the source of the Rungnu-chhu, and thence to follow the stream to Ringen. None of my coolies had ever been over the ground, and as I found to my cost, there was not even a track. The first two marches were very easy, as we kept to the centre of the glacier, which we found quite smooth and very good going, quite unlike most of the other glaciers I have been over, either those on the south of the Giucha-la, which are completely cut up, have enormous holes in them, and over which it would be quite impossible to march; the Zemu glacier, which is much the same, or the glaciers in the extreme north of the Lonak Valley, which again appear more like a rough sea suddenly frozen into enormous hummocks of ice.
This difference in the Kangchen glacier I am unable to account for, unless it may be that the ice, running as it does in a very narrow valley, is of a much greater depth, and also that the valley lying east and west gets less sun and escapes the full force of the south-west monsoon. It
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