We could not leave the ridge and traverse to our right, so perforce had to keep on descending, and when at last the mists did rise for a short time, we found our fears amply confirmed. The pass lay about a thousand feet above on our right, and, what was still more exasperating, the shortest route to it necessitated a still further descent of at least five hundred feet, followed by a traverse underneath the overhanging end of a glacier. An extra fifteen hundred feet of climbing up the unstable, interminable, and heart-breaking debris, which is so common on the south faces of the Himalaya, and that, too, late in the afternoon, was trying even to the best of tempers. I used quite unpublishable language, and even the imperturbable Mummery was moved to express his feelings in much more forcible language than was customary. There are occasions when language fails, and even the pen of Rudyard Kipling is unequal to depict the situation literally, though he does his best. There rises before me his description of that scene in the railway works at Jamalpur, where an apprentice is addressing, 'half in expostulation and half in despair, a very much disorganised engine which is sadly in need of repair.' Kipling gives us the gist of his language, but owns that after all the youth put it 'more crisply--very much more crisply.' We reached the top at last, but even then we had to traverse to the westward half a mile before beginning the descent. Once started we went at racing speed, sometimes getting a long glissade down soft snow, sometimes a run down small stone debris; it was rather hard on poor Lor Khan, who was not shod for this kind of work, and was soon left far behind. But it was getting late, and we wished to reach the camp before dark. Just as the sun was setting over the far-away hills in the wild, unknown Tangir, and shining through a thin veil of an evening shower, the tents under the Diamirai moraine were sighted; and during the after-dinner smoke opposite a roaring fire of pine logs we went over our day's adventures, and both agreed that we had enjoyed ourselves hugely: and so to bed. CHAPTER VII ATTEMPT TO ASCEND NANGA PARBAT