The numerous rivers that we had to pass upon the ice were another source of inconceivable misery and fatigue. Camels are so awkward and their walk is so uncouth and heavy, that in order to facilitate their passage, we were compelled to make a path for them across each river, either by strewing sand and dust, or by breaking the first coat of ice with our hatchets. After this, we had to take the brutes, one by one, and guide them carefully over the path thus traced out; if they had the ill-luck to stumble or slip, it was all over with them; down they threw themselves on the ice, and it was only with the utmost labour they could be got up again. We had first to take off their baggage, then to drag them with ropes to the bank, and then to stretch a carpet on which they might be induced to rise; sometimes all this labour was lost: you might beat the obstinate animals, pull them, kick them; not an effort would they make to get on their legs; in such cases, the only course was to leave them where they lay, for it was clearly impossible to wait, in those hideous localities, until the pig-headed brute chose to rise. All these combined miseries ended in casting the poor travellers into a depression bordering on despair. To the mortality of the animals, was now added that of the men, who, hopelessly seized upon by the cold, were abandoned, yet living, on the road. One day, when the exhaustion of our animals had compelled us to relax our march, so that we were somewhat behind the main body, we perceived a traveller sitting on a great stone, his head bent forward on his chest, his arms pressed against his sides, and his whole frame motionless as a statue. We called to him several times, but he made no reply, and did not even indicate, by the slightest movement, that he heard us. “How absurd,” said we to each other, “for a man to loiter in this way in such dreadful weather. The wretched fellow will assuredly die of cold.” We called to him once more, but he remained silent and motionless as before. We dismounted, went up to him, and recognised in him a young Mongol Lama, who had often paid us a visit in our tent. His face was exactly like wax, and his eyes, half-opened, had a glassy appearance; icicles hung from his nostrils and from the corners of his mouth. We spoke to him, but obtained no answer; and for a moment we thought him dead. Presently, however, he opened his eyes, and fixed them upon us with a horrible expression of stupifaction: the poor creature was frozen, and we comprehended at once that he had been abandoned by his companions. It seemed to us so frightful to leave a man to die, without making an effort to save him, that we did not hesitate to take him with us. We took him from the stone on which he had been placed, enveloped him in a wrapper, seated him upon Samdadchiemba’s little mule, and thus brought him to the encampment. When we had set up our tent, we went to visit the companions of this poor young man. Upon