Our saddle horses, which we led with us, were much cut by falls.
Gyalpo fell fully twenty feet, and got his side laid open. The
baggage horses, according to their owners, had all gone over one
precipice, which delayed them five hours.
Below us lay two leaky scows, and eight men from Sati, on the other
side of the Shayok, are pledged to the Government to ferry
travellers; but no amount of shouting and yelling, or burning of
brushwood, or even firing, brought them to the rescue, though their
pleasant lights were only a mile off. Snow fell, the wind was strong
and keen, and our tent-pegs were only kept down by heavy stones.
Blankets in abundance were laid down, yet failed to soften the
'paving stones' on which I slept that night! We had tea and rice,
but our men, whose baggage was astray on the mountains, were without
food for twenty-two hours, positively refusing to eat our food or
cook fresh rice in our cooking pots! To such an extent has Hindu
caste-feeling infected Moslems!
The disasters of that day's march, besides various breakages, were,
two servants helpless from 'pass-poison' and bruises; a Ladaki, who
had rolled over a precipice, with a broken arm, and Gergan bleeding
from an ugly scalp wound, also from a fall.
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