To Make Up For This, The Mercury
Falls Below The Freezing Point Every Night Of The Year, Even In
August The Difference Of Temperature In Twelve Hours Often Exceeding
120 Degrees!
The Rupchu nomads, however, delight in this climate of
extremes, and regard Leh as a place only to be visited in winter, and
Kulu and Kashmir as if they were the malarial swamps of the Congo!
We crossed the Toglang Pass, at a height of 18,150 feet, with less
suffering from ladug than on either the Digar or Kharzong Passes.
Indeed Gyalpo carried me over it stopping to take breath every few
yards. It was then a long dreary march to the camping-ground of
Tsala, where the Chang-pas spend the four summer months; the guides
and baggage animals lost the way and did not appear until the next
day, and in consequence the servants slept unsheltered in the snow.
News travels as if by magic in desert places. Towards evening, while
riding by a stream up a long and tedious valley, I saw a number of
moving specks on the crest of a hill, and down came a surge of
horsemen riding furiously. Just as they threatened to sweep Gyalpo
away, they threw their horses on their haunches, in one moment were
on the ground, which they touched with their foreheads, presented me
with a plate of apricots, and the next vaulted into their saddles,
and dashing up the valley were soon out of sight. In another half-
hour there was a second wild rush of horsemen, the headman
dismounted, threw himself on his face, kissed my hand, vaulted into
the saddle, and then led a swirl of his tribesmen at a gallop in
ever-narrowing circles round me till they subsided into the decorum
of an escort.
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