Between five and six that evening I arrived at our Tashing camp and found Bruce there. He had obtained a month's leave, bringing with him two Gurkhas--Ragobir and Goman Singh. Over our dinner we forgot the weary tramping of the last forty hours, celebrating the occasion by drinking all the bottles of Bass's pale ale--a priceless treasure in these parts--that we had brought from Kashmir. Then afterwards, when we turned into our sleeping-bags before the roaring camp-fire, and the twilight slowly passed into the azure night, and overhead the glistening stars were blazing in the clear sky, a worthy ceiling to this mountain land, it was agreed unanimously that it was worth coming many thousand miles to enjoy climbing in the Himalaya, and that those who lived at home ingloriously at their ease knew not the joys that were to be found amidst the ice and snows of the greatest of mountain ranges. Never would they enjoy the keen air that sweeps across the snow-clad heights, never would they wander homeless and supperless over the vile wastes which surround the Mazeno La for the best part of two nights and two days; and, last but not least, never would such joys as the marvellous contentment born of a good dinner, after incipient starvation, nor the delicious rest that comes as the reward after excessive fatigue--never would joys such as these be theirs. FOOTNOTES: [H] See illustration facing page 90. CHAPTER V SECOND JOURNEY TO DIAMIRAI NULLAH AND ASCENT TO 21,000 FEET 'And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains, Power dwells apart in their tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible.' SHELLEY. Next day Bruce and I with Ragobir and Goman Singh went for an excursion up the Tashing glacier, in order that the two Gurkhas might have some experience in ice-work and step-cutting. It was great fun, and although I was perfectly unable to understand any of their conversation, Ragobir and Goman Singh were laughing, chattering, and playing the whole time like two children.