umped into the
air, took a few uncertain steps, stopped, reeled, tried to keep his
balance, fell, lifted himself, but fell again heavily and helplessly to
the ground, and lay motionless. It was stone dead, and in an hour was
skinned and cut up.

This took place on September 9. On the 23rd of the same month the
relations of the yak bull might have seen from a distance a strange
procession. Some men carried a long object to the edge of a grave which
had just been dug, lowered it into the trench, covered it with a skin
coat, and filled in the grave with stones and earth. Into this simple
mound was thrust a tent pole, with the wild yak's bushy tail fastened to
the top; and the man who slumbered under the hillock was Aldat himself,
the great yak-hunter.

X

INDIA

FROM TIBET TO SIMLA

Right up in Tibet lie the sources of the Sutlej, the largest affluent of
the Indus. With irresistible force it breaks through the Himalayas in
order to get down to the sea, and its valley affords us an excellent
road from the highlands of Tibet to the burning lowlands of India. On
this journey we pass through a succession of belts of elevation, and
find that various animals and plants are peculiar to different heights.
The tiger does not go very high up on the southern flanks of the
Himalayas, but the snow leopard is not afraid of cold. The tame yak
would die if he were brought down to denser strata of air, and Marco
Polo's sheep would waste away on the forest-clothed heights; but wolves,
foxes and hares occur as frequently in India as in Tibet.

The boundaries of the flora are more sharply defined. Below the limit of
eternal snow (13,000 feet) ranunculus and anemones, pedicularis and
primulas are found just as they are in our higher latitudes with
corresponding conditions of temperature. At 12,000 feet lies the limit
of forest, beyond which the birch does not go, but where pine-trees
still thrive. Between 10,000 and 6000 feet are woods of the beautiful
and charming conifer called the Himalayan cedar, which is allied to the
cedar of Lebanon. At 7000 feet the limit of subtropical woods is
crossed, and the oak and the climbing rose are seen. Just below 3500
feet the tropical forest is entered, with acacias, palms, bamboos, and
all the floral wealth of the Indian jungle.

The Sutlej grows bigger and bigger the further we descend, and we ride
on shaking bridges across innumerable tributaries. The atmosphere
becomes denser, and bre