g them on, and it
is impressed for ever on my mind as a fitting reward for the hardships I
had put up with.

We pitched our tents in a sheltered narrow valley to the North-West of
the large basin. Altitude, 15,400 feet. Thermometer: Minimum, 24 deg.,
Maximum, 51 deg..

CHAPTER XXII

Want of fuel--Cooking under difficulty--Mansing lost and
found--Saved from summary justice--Tibetan visitors--We purchase
sheep--The snow-line--Cold streams--The petrified _chapati_ and
human hand.

ONE of the main drawbacks of travelling at these great altitudes was the
want of vegetable fuel. There was not a tree, not a shrub to be seen near
our camp. Nature wore her most desolate and barren look. Failing wood, my
men dispersed to collect and bring in the dry dung of yak, pony and sheep
to serve as fuel. Kindling this was no easy matter, box after box of
matches was quickly used, and our collective lung power severely drawn
upon in fanning the unwilling sparks into a flame only a few inches high.
Upon this meagre fire we attempted to cook our food and boil our water (a
trying process at such an altitude), keeping our own circulation fairly
normal by constantly required efforts. The cuisine that night was not of
the usual excellence, and did but little credit to the cook. We had to
eat everything half-cooked, or, to be accurate, almost altogether
uncooked. The night was a bitterly cold one, with a heavy fall of snow.
When we rose in the morning it lay quite two feet deep around us, and the
glare was painful to the eyes. I mustered my men. Mansing was missing. He
had not arrived the previous night, and there was no sign of the man I
had sent in search of him. I was anxious not only from my personal
interest in his load (the fellow carried a load of flour, salt, pepper,
and five pounds of butter), but I was afraid that the poor leper might
himself have been washed away in one of the dangerous streams. Even if
this fear were groundless, he must, I felt, have suffered terribly from
the cold with no shelter and no fire. Bijesing, who had gone in search of
him, had eaten some food before starting, and had taken blankets with
him in case he could not return to camp during the night.

It was long after sunrise when, with the aid of my telescope, I
discovered the two men coming towards us. They arrived an hour or so
later. Mansing had been found sound asleep, several miles back, lying by
the side of the empty butter