Whenever a mule or pony lagged behind it was our custom to leave a man or two men with them, as well as clothing and food for both; but in nine cases out of ten this arrangement was a waste of labour, for if an animal is incapable of carrying a load any further, the most satisfactory and economical way is to shoot the poor brute, unless there is at one's disposal time to halt for three or four days by some good grass, giving it a chance of recovering some of its lost strength. Without being able to do this, an animal will be driven along for several days carrying no load, and at the same time, it must be remembered, he is being fed up with more than his full share of grain, which the other animals are carrying, in the hope that he will recover sufficiently to earn his keep. When once they have given in, and there is no chance of a halt whereby to recoup, it is false economy to drive them along any further. Yet we did this over and over again, to our own detriment, for one forms a great attachment for such patient and long-suffering animals as our mules and ponies proved themselves to be.
The district of Lanak La is a good shooting-ground for yak and antelope, and it would well repay a sportsman shooting in Ladakh to quietly pop over the frontier and enjoy his sport in secrecy.
A COLD NIGHT—DEATH OF MULE—A FRESH-WATER LAKE—BAD WEATHER—DEATH OF THE FAVOURITE WHITE PONY—BY A SALT LAKE—ILLNESS OF TOKHTA—I SEARCH FOR MISSING ANIMALS.
We left our camping ground at Lanak La on Sunday, the 31st May, and failing to find the sign of any track running northwards, we tried to make out by which route Bower had gone, but our only map was drawn to such a very small scale that we could decide on nothing with any certainty. Riding ahead on our ponies, we found our easiest way was to continue up the nullah we were in, which led over an easy pass, from the summit of which we looked back over the Lanak La.
In spite of our extensive views, we could discover no route running in any direction whatever, and having come so far, we decided to give up all searching for routes and to find a way for ourselves, marching due east as much as possible, and, failing that, north rather than south. Quite naturally, therefore, we descended the other side of the pass just the same as any one else would have done, and then we found a range of mountains north of us, and another range south of us, compelling us to take to a rather narrow nullah which eventually debouched in the early afternoon into a broad valley some miles across, running in an easterly direction, and bounded north and south by ranges of snow-tipped hills. Thus the actual finding of our way was not such a difficult undertaking as one might have expected. We could see the valley stretching far away to the east, and calculated that we had some days of clear sailing before us.