He Had Been
Acquitted Of The Murder, He Said, 'and Though I Killed The Man, It
Was According To The
Custom of my country - he gave me an insult which
could only be wiped out in blood!' The guard
Dared not touch him,
and he went to the wazir, demanded a coolie, and got one!
Our party left Leh early on a glorious morning, travelling light, Mr.
Redslob, a very learned Lhassa monk, named Gergan, Mr. R.'s servant,
my three, and four baggage horses, with two drivers engaged for the
journey. The great Kailas range was to be crossed, and the first
day's march up long, barren, stony valleys, without interest, took us
to a piece of level ground, with a small semi-subterranean refuge on
which there was barely room for two tents, at the altitude of the
summit of Mont Blanc. For two hours before we reached it the men and
animals showed great distress. Gyalpo stopped every few yards,
gasping, with blood trickling from his nostrils, and turned his head
so as to look at me, with the question in his eyes, What does this
mean? Hassan Khan was reeling from vertigo, but would not give in;
the seis, a creature without pluck, was carried in a blanket slung on
my tent poles, and even the Tibetans suffered. I felt no
inconvenience, but as I unsaddled Gyalpo I was glad that there was no
more work to do! This 'mountain-sickness,' called by the natives
ladug, or 'pass-poison,' is supposed by them to be the result of the
odour or pollen of certain plants which grow on the passes.
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