So far as Shahidoola, the journey was in a well known region, and outside the frontier of Yakoob Beg. At that place the first sign of that ruler's power was encountered in the same way as Mr. Shaw, five years before, had witnessed the advanced limit of the power of the Athalik Ghazi in a southerly direction. A captain of the Kashgarian army, Yuzbashi Mahomed Zareef Khan, had been deputed to receive our envoy at the frontier, and to give him a hearty welcome. After a rest of four days, the whole expedition, advancing in two bodies over the Grim Pass, Sanju Devan, entered the inhabited territory of Sanju. Here Hadji Torah, who had been travelling "post" after them from India, caught them up, and by his tact and real friendship for this country, contributed greatly to the complete success of the mission. The passage of the Grim Pass, although accomplished with success, was no easy task. Dr. Bellew, in his book "Kashmir and Kashgar," gives the following graphic description of it, which may be quoted with advantage as showing some of the "obstacles of nature" to the advance either of an army or a caravan in this quarter:-- "The scene which now burst upon our view is one not easy to describe, still less to forget. Immediately on either hand, like the portals of a gate, stood bare banks of silver grey slate, which gently spread away on each side into the slopes that, inclining together, formed the theatre of the spectacle they limited. And immediately in front commenced that gentle rise over slabs of slate _débris_--the natural dark hue of which was lost in the bright sparkle of its abundant mica--which led at once on to the field of our vision. Here, at the foot of the ascent, one step took us from the tiresome monotony of the bare rocks behind, with all their dulness of hue, on to the snow, which overspread all before with a white sheet of the most dazzling brilliance. On the left and on the right it spread with uniform regularity to the crests of the bounding ridges in those directions; whilst in front, it rose up as a vast wall, whose top cut the sky in a succession of sharp peaks with a clearness of outline rarely witnessed. And above all, stretched the wide expanse of heaven, with a depth unsearchable, in the speckless purity of its azure, and with a calm such as often precedes the storm. Wonderful was the scene!" Such is the description of an eye-witness of this striking scene, which in its solemnity approached the sublime, in its grandeur the terrible. The last hundred feet of the ascent was a sheer wall of ice, like the Matterhorn, and up this the troopers' horses, and the baggage mules and ponies, had to be lifted by human force. More than a whole day was occupied in surmounting this obstacle alone, but it was surmounted with the small loss of eight mules and three ponies. With the crossing of the Grim Pass, the difficulties of nature disappeared, and henceforth the course of the mission lay in the more sheltered plains of Kashgaria.