Clouds persistently interfered with the view of Nanga Parbat, but now and again its summit would shine through the drifting vapours, showing precipice above precipice. The eastern face of the Chiche peak, which we saw edgeways, was superb. Nowhere in the Alps is there anything with which one can compare the savage black corrie which nestled right in the heart of the mountain, showing dark, precipitous walls of rock, with here and there a shelf where isolated patches of snow rested. This corrie forms one of the heads of the Chiche nullah, which would be worth visiting for this solitary and savage view alone. As we descended our rock-ridge we had to put on the rope, and soon experienced all the pleasures of the initiated. Our bold and fearless Kashmir servants got more and more alarmed; and the peculiar positions they occasionally thought it necessary to assume made us feel how sweet is the joy of being able to accomplish something that an inexperienced companion regards as impossible. In many places it was only by very great persuasion that they were induced to move. Many were the things they told in Hindustani, which we understood but imperfectly, though we gathered in a general way that no self-respecting Kashmiri would ever attempt to climb down such places, and that even the ibex and markhor would find it an impossibility, a true enough assertion, seeing that many of the small rock faces to be negotiated were practically perpendicular for fifteen or twenty feet. We reached our tents late in the afternoon to find that Hastings had come up from the lower camp. A council of war was then held. Evidently we were not in condition to storm lofty peaks; and in order to get ourselves into proper training, a walk round to the other side of Nanga Parbat was considered necessary. Hastings as arranged had brought up plenty of provisions, thus enabling the party to brave the snows and uninhabited wilds in front of them. Our immediate movements decided upon, we sat round the camp fire, dined, smoked, talked, and finally, when the stars were shining brightly above the precipice-encircled summit of Nanga Parbat opposite, retired into our sleeping-bags for the night. FOOTNOTES: [F] All the heights given, other than those taken from the Ordnance Survey, are deduced from observations made with a novel and portable form of mercurial barometer, which can be coiled up and carried in a small tin box in the pocket. As we were unable to make comparative readings with a second instrument at a known height, the barometrical readings are, in every case, calculated from the pressure at sea-level being assumed to be 30 inches. This makes the heights, as a rule, about 800 feet _lower_ than if 31 inches were taken as the normal sea-level pressure. [G] Cp. page 304. CHAPTER IV FIRST JOURNEY TO DIAMIRAI NULLAH AND THE DIAMIRAI PASS