The caravan halted at the foot of Mount Chuga, and each member of it sought refuge for awhile in the labyrinths of a number of adjacent defiles. Exhausted with hunger, and our limbs thoroughly benumbed, what we wanted to bring us to, was a good fire, a good supper, and a good well-warmed bed; but the Chuga is far from possessing the comfortable features of the Alps; no Buddhist monks have as yet bethought themselves of taking up their abode there for the solace and salvation of poor travellers. We were, consequently, fain to set up our tent amid the snow, and then to go in search of what argols we could burn. It was a spectacle worthy of all pity to see that multitude, wandering about in all directions, and rummaging up the snow, in the hope of lighting upon some charming thick bed of argols. For ourselves, after long and laborious research, we managed to collect just enough of the article to melt three great lumps of ice, which we extracted by aid of a hatchet, from an adjacent pond. Our fire not being strong enough to boil the kettle, we had to content ourselves with infusing our tsamba in some tepid water, and gulping it down in order to prevent its freezing in our hands. Such was all the supper we had after our frightful day’s journey. We then rolled ourselves up in our goat-skins and blankets, and, crouching in a corner of the tent, awaited the cannon-shot that was to summon us to our delightful _Impressions de Voyage_. We left in this picturesque and enchanting encampment, the Tartar soldiers who had escorted us since our departure from Koukou-Noor; they were no longer able to extend to us their generous protection, for, that very day, we were about to quit Tartary, and to enter the territory of Hither Thibet. The Chinese and Tartar soldiers having thus left us, the embassy had now only to rely upon its own internal resources. As we have already stated, this great body of 2,000 men was completely armed, and everyone, with the merest exception, had announced himself prepared to show himself, upon occasion, a good soldier. But some how or other the whilome so martial and valorous air of the caravan had become singularly modified since the passage of the Bourhan-Bota. Nobody sang now, nobody joked, nobody laughed, nobody pranced about on his horse; everybody was dull and silent; the moustaches which heretofore had been so fiercely turned up, were now humbly veiled beneath the lamb-skins with which all our faces were covered up to the eyes. All our gallant soldiers had made up their lances, fusils, sabres, bows and arrows, into bundles, which were packed upon their sumpter animals. For that matter, the fear of being killed by the brigands scarcely occurred now to any one: the point was to avoid being killed by the cold.