Note 26 — Chapter I · JOURNEY FROM DARJILING TO TASHILHUNPO.

After walking about an hour we found we had made but little progress, when we came on the tracks of a Tibetan long-tailed leopard (sah).26 I wondered how the animal had been able to walk along over the soft snow without ever sinking in it, but my men explained this by attributing supernatural powers to this beast, which they said was indeed the goblin of leopards. An hour’s struggle in the snow exhausted my strength, and I could proceed no further. The guide opened the loads and repacked them, putting all the breakable objects in one, all the clothing and provisions in the other. The latter he threw down the slope, and it ploughed a path, down which I followed till the load brought up against a rock. Then I let myself slide down the half-hardened snow, guiding myself with my elbows so as to escape any crevasse across my path.