th which we were familiar--sandy,
salt-encrusted, treeless, waterless, and here and there streaked with
the first snows of winter. Beyond it, eighty or a hundred miles away--in
that lucent atmosphere it was impossible to say how far exactly--rose
more mountains, a veritable sea of them, of which the white peaks soared
upwards by scores.

As the golden rays of the rising sun touched their snows to splendour,
I saw Leo's eyes become troubled. Swiftly he turned and looked along the
edge of the desert.

"See there!" he said, pointing to something dim and enormous. Presently
the light reached it also. It was a mighty mountain not more than ten
miles away, that stood out by itself among the sands. Then he turned
once more, and with his back to the desert stared at the slope of the
hills, along the base of which we had been travelling. As yet they were
in gloom, for the sun was behind them, but presently light began to flow
over their crests like a flood. Down it crept, lower, and yet lower,
till it reached a little plateau not three hundred yards above us.
There, on the edge of the plateau, looking out solemnly across the
waste, sat a great ruined idol, a colossal Buddha, while to the rear of
the idol, built of yellow stone, appeared the low crescent-shaped mass
of a monastery.

"At last!" cried Leo, "oh, Heaven! at last!" and, flinging himself down,
he buried his face in the snow as though to hide it there, lest I should
read something written on it which he did not desire that even I should
see.

I let him lie a space, understanding what was passing in his heart,
and indeed in mine also. Then going to the yak that, poor brute, had
no share in these joyous emotions but only lowed and looked round with
hungry eyes, I piled the sheepskin rugs on to its back. This done, I
laid my hand on Leo's shoulder, saying, in the most matter-of-fact voice
I could command--"Come. If that place is not deserted, we may find food
and shelter there, and it is beginning to storm again."

He rose without a word, brushed the snow from his beard and garments and
came to help me to lift the yak to its feet, for the worn-out beast was
too stiff and weak to rise of itself. Glancing at him covertly, I saw
on Leo's face a very strange and happy look; a great peace appeared to
possess him.

We plunged upwards through the snow slope, dragging the yak with us, to
the terrace whereon the monastery was built. Nobody seemed to be about
there, nor coul