Its Only Inhabitants
Are 500 Nomads, And On The Ten Marches Of The Trade Route, The Bridle
Paths, On Which
In some places labour has been spent, the tracks, not
always very legible, made by the passage of caravans, and
Rude dykes,
behind which travellers may shelter themselves from the wind, are the
only traces of man. Herds of the kyang, the wild horse of some
naturalists, and the wild ass of others, graceful and beautiful
creatures, graze within gunshot of the track without alarm, I had
thought Ladak windy, but Rupchu is the home of the winds, and the
marches must be arranged for the quietest time of the day. Happily
the gales blow with clockwork regularity, the day wind from the south
and south-west rising punctually at 9 a.m. and attaining its maximum
at 2.30, while the night wind from the north and north-east rises
about 9 p.m. and ceases about 5 a.m. Perfect silence is rare. The
highly rarefied air, rushing at great speed, when at its worst
deprives the traveller of breath, skins his face and hands, and
paralyses the baggage animals. In fact, neither man nor beast can
face it. The horses 'turn tail' and crowd together, and the men
build up the baggage into a wall and crouch in the lee of it. The
heat of the solar rays is at the same time fearful. At Lachalang, at
a height of over 15,000 feet, I noted a solar temperature of 152
degrees, only 35 degrees below the boiling point of water in the same
region, which is about 187 degrees.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 78 of 101
Words from 21073 to 21345
of 27584