SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
the escort and heavy baggage to Phari, and Hyslop having by this time arrived, we left Chumbi on December 2. Rennick and I went straight to Gautsa, while Wilton and Hyslop camped at Lingmathang in hopes of getting a shau of which my shikari had brought us news. It was a very cold day when we started, with the thermometer at zero and the high wind that always blows up the valley, and this shortly turned into a veritable hurricane, so the two in tents had a bad night of it. The wind was so strong they could hardly keep the tent standing; they were nearly frozen; and, worst of all, after having undergone all these discomforts, they could see no sign of the shau, although my orderly, Purboo, said he caught a glimpse of one close to the camp. The shau which the shikari reported having seen was apparently a magnificent specimen, with splendid horns, and was known to many natives by a small white patch on its forehead. I should very much have liked to stay and stalk him, but I had no time for such pleasures, and had to forego a chance I shall not have again.
Wilton returned to India from Lingmathang, as he was obliged to meet some Chinamen in Calcutta, and Hyslop came on by himself to rejoin us in the bungalow at Gautsa, where we were waiting for him. He found the road very bad and difficult, as the wind had covered it with the trunks of fallen trees.
We in the bungalow had not fared much better than the men in tents. We were a good deal higher, and the cold—26° below zero—was so intense that the river, usually a roaring torrent, was frozen absolutely solid during the night, and there was not a sound of water to be heard. It was very curious to listen to it gradually becoming less and less until it finally became silent. All our provisions in the bungalow, milk, tea, meat even, were frozen solid, and no fire would thaw them; no water was to be had, only chunks of ice; and it was almost impossible to keep warm. The wind was still blowing a hurricane, and the mule-
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