At this point my two yaks, which I noticed had been marching with more than usual smartness, bolted while I was ordering Chanden Sing and Mansing to take down the loads, and went straight into the water. In attempting to make them turn back, Mansing threw a stone at them, which, however, only sent them on all the faster. The current was so strong, and the bottom of the river so soft, that they both sank, and when they reappeared on the surface it was only to float rapidly away down stream. We watched them with ever-increasing anxiety, for they seemed quite helpless. We ran panting along the river bank, urging them on with shouts to drive them to the other side. Alas, in their desperate struggle to keep afloat, and powerless against the current, the two yaks collided violently in mid-stream, and the bump caused the pack-saddle and loads of the smaller yak to turn over. The animal, thus overbalanced and hampered, sank and reappeared two or three times, struggling for air and life. It was, indeed, a terrible moment. I threw off my clothes and jumped into the water. I swam fast to the animal, and, with no small exertion, pulled him on shore, some two hundred yards farther down the stream. We were both safe, though breathless, but, alas! the ropes that held the baggage had given way, and saddle and loads had disappeared. This loss was a dreadful blow to us. I tried hard, by repeatedly diving into the river, until I was almost frozen, to recover my goods, but failed to find them or even to locate them. Where I suspected them to be the water was over twenty feet deep, and the bottom of the river was of soft mud; so that the weight of the loads would have caused them to sink and be covered over with it. [Illustration: RESCUING A YAK] Diving at such very great elevations gave one a peculiar and unpleasant sensation. The moment I was entirely under water, I felt as if I were compressed under an appalling weight which seemed to crush me. Had the liquid above and around me been a mass of lead instead of water, it could not have felt heavier. The sensation was especially noticeable in my head, which felt as if my skull were being screwed into a vice. The beating at my temples was so strong that, though in ordinary circumstances I can remain under water for over a minute, I could there never bold out for longer than fifteen or twenty seconds. Each time that I emerged from below, gasping for air, my heart beat alarmingly hard, and my lungs seemed as if about to burst.