After he had climbed some three thousand feet, he began to be on the
alert for some sound of ghostly chanting from the statues; but he heard
nothing, and toiled on till he came to a sprinkling of fresh snow--part
of the fall which he had observed on the preceding day as having whitened
the higher mountains; he knew, therefore, that he must now be nearing the
saddle. The snow grew rapidly deeper, and by the time he reached the
statues the ground was covered to a depth of two or three inches.
He found the statues smaller than he had expected. He had said in his
book--written many months after he had seen them--that they were about
six times the size of life, but he now thought that four or five times
would have been enough to say. Their mouths were much clogged with snow,
so that even though there had been a strong wind (which there was not)
they would not have chanted. In other respects he found them not less
mysteriously impressive than at first. He walked two or three times all
round them, and then went on.
The snow did not continue far down, but before long my father entered a
thick bank of cloud, and had to feel his way cautiously along the stream
that descended from the pass. It was some two hours before he emerged
into clear air, and found himself on the level bed of an old lake now
grassed over.
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