Starting at 10 a.m., we did not reach the top till 3.30 p.m.; we had halted nowhere, but the last few miles had been most laborious, and the three of us who gained the summit were utterly knocked up. Fortunately I carried my own barometer; it indicated 16·206 inches, giving by comparative observations with Calcutta 16,764 feet, and with Dorjiling, 16,748 feet, as the height of the pass. The thermometer stood at 18°, and the sun being now hidden behind rocks, the south-east wind was bitterly cold. Hitherto the sun had appeared as a clearly defined sparkling globe, against a dark-blue sky; but the depth of the azure blue was not so striking as I had been led to suppose, by the accounts of previous travellers, in very lofty regions. The plants gathered near the top of the pass were species of _Compositæ,_ grass, and _Arenaria_; the most curious was _Saussurea gossypina,_ which forms great clubs of the softest white wool, six inches to a foot high, its flowers and leaves seeming uniformly clothed with the warmest fur that nature can devise. Generally speaking, the alpine plants of the Himalaya are quite unprovided with any special protection of this kind; it is the prevalence and conspicuous nature of the exceptions that mislead, and induce the careless observer to generalise hastily from solitary instances; for the prevailing alpine genera of the Himalaya, _Arenarias,_ primroses, saxifrages, fumitories, _Ranunculi,_ gentians, grasses, sedges, etc., have almost uniformly naked foliage. We descended to the foot of the pass in about two hours, darkness overtaking us by the way; the twilight, however, being prolonged by the glare of the snow. Fearing the distance to Tuquoroma might be too great to permit of our returning thither the same night; I had had a few things brought hither during the day, and finding they had arrived, we encamped under the shelter of some enormous boulders (at 13,500 feet), part of an ancient moraine, which extended some distance along the bed of the narrow valley. Except an excruciating headache, I felt no ill effects from my ascent; and after a supper of tea and biscuit, I slept soundly. On the following morning the temperature was 28° at 6.30 a.m., and rose to 30° when the sun appeared over the mountains at 8.15, at which time the black bulb thermometer suddenly mounted to 112°, upwards of 80° above the temperature of the air. The sky was brilliantly clear, with a very dry, cold, north wind blowing down the snowy valley of the pass. [Illustration: Demon’s head] Chapter X