Il I
begged that I would not proceed in that direction, as
they said, perhaps with justice, that the risks would be
too great; they pointed out that only one day’s rations
remained and that we had no meat at all. This plan
of mine had, therefore, to be reluctantly abandoned.
The faithful Ram Singh came to my assistance at
this point; he and Soonam Sirring had both been with
Captain Deasy when he crossed the Kuan Luan range
from Chinese Turkestan into Tibet in 1900; it had
been intended to traverse Tibet, finishing the expedition
in Burma, but sickness had attacked the men when
they reached Yeshil Kul, and the expedition consequently
returned to Leh. Before they left Yeshil Kul,
however, Deasy had buried many maunds of stores and
supplies in a hiding-place marked by cairns of stones.
Now Hargreaves was encamped on the banks of Yeshil
Kul, and both Ram Singh and Soonam Sirring knew
the whereabouts of this hidden supply—if we could
only find it, the grain could be used to strengthen the
starving ponies, and we could set out afresh with renewed
energy. We determined, therefore, to leave the
tents and everything which we could possibly do
without for the present, and return to Hargreaves
with all the available ponies.
This would be no easy task, on account of the
shortness of rations; the men had only enough flour
for one day, and my own foodstuffs were reduced to tea,
potatoes and tobacco. A halt here, however, would
have been worse than useless, so on July 12th we piled
up all the surplus goods inside one of the tents (all
three of which were left standing), and set out for
Yeshil Kul.
On the first day we covered sixteen miles, and on
the second twenty ; almost more than we could do, for
walking at an altitude of 17,000 feet takes more out of