After a while there was yet another bitterly cold stream to ford; two small lakes to skirt; three more deep rivers to wade, with cold water from the snows up to our chests, and then we had to make the best way we could through a large field of rocks and stones showing strong indications of iron, my compasses being at once affected, and becoming for a time quite unreliable owing to the deviation. A curious flat circular stone, resting on the top of others, was pointed out to me as a wonder; the accepted legend of the Shokas being that, centuries ago, one of their countrymen halted by the side of this rock, and having baked a _chapati_, laid it upon the rock, proceeding to make others, when to his great astonishment, on raising his hand to take his first _chapati_, he found it had turned into solid stone, and had furthermore assumed gigantic proportions. A few feet farther on I was pointed out another wonder, a great human hand (as the Tibetans and Shokas call it), which is supposed to have belonged to the maker of the _chapati_. Not being satisfied with his first experience, he laid his hand on the rock, and there it remained, petrified, and in this case also, increasing tenfold in size. I could see, with some stretch of the imagination, a certain resemblance to an enormous human hand, but the thing required more faith than observation. Mile after mile we marched over sharp stones, wading through a second troublesome delta of eight arms fully a mile in width, across a flat basin of pointed pebbles and stones, until at last, to our great delight, we came to smooth grass land, a soothing comfort to one's torn feet. [Illustration: THE SNOW-LINE AT 16,000 FEET]