But he says he's a very good guide to the passes, for all that, and if he's well paid will do what he's paid for." Next day but one we approached at last, after several short marches, the neighbourhood of what our guide assured us was a Buddhist monastery.
I was glad when he told us of it, giving the place the name of a well-known Nepaulese village; for, to say the truth, I was beginning to get frightened.

Judging by the sun, for I had brought no compass, it struck me that we seemed to have been marching almost due north ever since we left Toloo; and I fancied such a line of march must have brought us by this time suspiciously near the Tibetan frontier.

Now, I had no desire to be "skinned alive," as Sir Ivor put it.

I did not wish to emulate St.Bartholomew and others of the early Christian martyrs; so I was pleased to learn that we were really drawing near to Kulak, the first of the Nepaulese Buddhist monasteries to which our well-informed guide, himself a Buddhist, had promised to introduce us.
We were tramping up a beautiful high mountain valley, closed round on every side by snowy peaks.

A brawling river ran over a rocky bed in cataracts down its midst.