it might save time to climb up from the pass on the south side, over a peak nearly 21,000 feet, in order to drop down on to the Mazeno La; but we soon decided that it was imprudent so late in the day to attempt it, especially as it would most certainly involve spending the night out at some very high altitude. We therefore rapidly descended the easy slopes on the south side of this pass, to which, as I have said, we gave the name of Diamirai. After running down the foot glacier, the Lubar glacier was reached at about half-past five. Here we stopped and rested for about an hour and a half, vainly attempting to get away from a bitterly cold wind that was blowing up from the west. But there was no shelter, so the lesser of two evils was chosen, namely to go on. Slowly we crawled to the foot of the Mazeno La, and about twenty hours after we had started on our expedition, without food, and with only the light of our lanterns, we toiled up the slopes that would bring us at last to the top of our second pass, 18,000 feet above sea-level. I shall never forget how tobacco helped me through that night, as I smoked whilst waiting on the summit, in the freezing air and the bright starlight, for Mummery and Hastings; it almost made me feel that I was enjoying myself; and it stayed the pangs of hunger and soothed away the utter weariness that beset both mind and body. During our wild nocturnal wanderings, first down the Mazeno, and then down the Rupal glacier, where in the dim candle-light and in a semi-conscious condition we slipped, tumbled, and fell, but always with one dominant idea--namely, we must go on!--that pipe continued to help me. What cared I though Hastings growled?--he does not smoke!--or whether poor Mummery groaned aloud as he stepped into icy pools of water. So we stumbled frantically forwards, over the vast wilderness of stones and ice; and I remember, as we groped our way onwards, I must have half fallen asleep, for I could not get out of my mind that there was a hut or a small hotel on the top of the Mazeno La, and that for our sins we had been doomed to wander for ever in this dismal and waste land of cold and darkness, whilst rest and food were foolishly left behind.