Soon after sunset the cold was intense. It was still snowing hard. Our wet garments and blankets were beginning to freeze. I lighted a small spirit-lamp, round which we all sat close together, making such a shelter as we could with our frozen wraps. I even attempted to cook some concentrated broth on the flame, but, owing to the high altitude, the water took a long time to lose its chill, not to speak of the time it took to boil. When it was just getting tepid the flame went out, and I could not afford more spirits of wine to light the flame again. So the cooking had to be abandoned, and as the night grew colder and colder, we huddled together under our respective blankets in order to sleep. We had made a protecting wall with our baggage. My men covered their heads with their blankets, but I never could adopt their style of sleeping, as it seemed to smother me. I always slept with my head uncovered, for not only could I breathe more freely, but I wished to be on the alert should we at any time be surprised by the Tibetans. My men moaned and groaned and their teeth chattered during the night. I woke many times with a bad pain in my ears, caused by frost-bite; my eyes, too, suffered as the eyelashes became covered with icicles. Every time I tried to open my eyelids there was an uncomfortable feeling, as if the eyelashes were being torn off. In the intense cold the lids became fast frozen directly they were closed. At last the sun rose. The night had seemed endless. When I tried to raise the blanket in order to sit up, it seemed of an extraordinary weight and stiffness. No wonder! It was frozen hard, was as rigid as card-board, and covered over with a layer of snow one foot thick. The thermometer during the night had gone down to 24 deg. I called my men. They were hard to wake. They were entirely buried under the snow. "_Uta! uta! uta!_" (Get up! get up! get up!) I called, shaking one by one, brushing off the snow from over their blankets. "_Baroff bahut_" (There is much snow), remarked one man, as he put his nose outside his blanket and rubbed his eyes, smarting from the white glare of the snow around us. "Salaam, sahib," he added, when, having overcome his first surprise, he perceived me, and he raised his hand gracefully up to his forehead. The others behaved in a similar manner. Kachi was, as usual, the last one to wake. "Oh, Kachi," I shouted, "get up!" "_Oh, bahiyoh!_" (Oh, father!) yawned he, stretching his arms. Half asleep, half awake, he looked round as if in a trance, muttering incoherent words. "Good-morning, sir. Oh ... much snow. Oh ... look, sir, two _kiangs_ there! What is '_kiang_' in English?" "Wild horse." "'Wild' you spell w-i-l-d?" "Yes." Here the note-book was produced from under his pillow, and the English word duly written down. Odd creatures, these Shokas! The average European, half starved and frozen, would hardly give much thought to exact spelling under such trying circumstances.