and back, and the shortness of breath necessitating a halt every hundred
yards or so. Colonel Kelly did not suffer from it at all, but trudged
along without a halt the whole way. That is the only time I have ever
suffered from mountain sickness, and I have crossed the Shandur both
before and since, as also other passes, without feeling any
inconvenience.

By noon we had almost reached the highest point of the pass, and were
skirting the larger lake, when we met the coolies of Borradaile's party
returning with an escort of some of the Kashmir troops. They all seemed
pretty lively in spite of the poor time they had been having; but as
they are used to crossing the Shandur at all times of the year, I
daresay our sympathy was a good deal wasted.

We were soon descending into the Laspur valley, and we had hardly
dropped three hundred feet before all sense of sickness left me, and I
felt as fit as possible. A short way out of the village we were met by a
patrol which Borradaile had sent out to meet us, and by two o'clock we
were in camp, where we found Oldham in command, Borradaile having gone
on a reconnaissance down the valley. The previous day news had been
brought in that the enemy were assembled in the valley, and a small
party had gone out, as I have already related. On the morning of the 6th
April, Borradaile accordingly determined on another reconnaissance, this
time taking the guns with him, they being carried by Laspuri villagers,
who no doubt thought the game very poor fun. Gough went with the party,
Oldham remaining in command of the post, which was garrisoned with the
maimed, the halt, and the blind--in other words, with men suffering from
frostbite and snow blindness, of whom there were some twenty-six of the
former and thirty of the latter; those men of the Kashmir troops who
were fit to march being sent back across the pass as escort to the