* * The Zoji Pass and Sind Valley. 335

before getting to Ganderbahl I came across three of his
retinue, who puzzled me a little. It was very wet and
very muddy, when I suddenly came across three riders
in black European waterproofs, one of whom said to
me-—" Bones sore, Mushu ?" After being for months
up in the Himalaya, one is unaccustomed to being ac-
costed in a European language; and the matter was
complicated by the fact that my bones were sore at the
time, and most confoundedly so, 'from the combined
effect of that evening on the Omba La and of a fall.
Hence it was that I had fairly passed the three curious
riders before it at all occurred to my mind that the
salutation was " Bon soir, Monsieur." They were
doubtless Frenchified Turks, whom the envoy had
brought from Constantinople; but they had scarcely
any ground to expect that their peculiar French would
be recognised, on the moment, in one of the upper
valleys of Kashmir.

But I have not quite yet got into even the outskirts
of the Garden of Eden. The Zoji La had to be crossed ;
and though it is a very easy pass, and set down by the
Trigonometrical Survey as only 11,300 feet high, one
cannot calculate beforehand on what state a pass may
happen to be in. At Srinagar I heard, on what seemed
to be good authority, that the Trigonometrical Survey
had fallen into an error here, and made this pass about
1000 feet lower than it is ; but such, I learn, has not
been the case ; for I find that, though the Zoji La has
not been determined trigonometrically, it has been re-
peatedly measured in other ways. The idea that an
error had been made was due to an observation taken
on a spur higher than the actual pass. The Zoji La is
a very remarkable depression in the Himalayan range,
and no other such depression exists all the way from
Nangha Parbat and the bend of the Indus to the most
easterly part of Bhotan.