For between us and these stretched the great desert, where the snow rolled like billows, and until that snow melted we dared not attempt its passage.

So we sat in the monastery, and schooled our hearts to patience.
Still even to these frozen wilds of Central Asia spring comes at last.
One evening the air felt warm, and that night there were only a few degrees of frost.

The next the clouds banked up, and in the morning not snow was falling from them, but rain, and we found the old monks preparing their instruments of husbandry, as they said that the season of sowing was at hand.

For three days it rained, while the snows melted before our eyes.

On the fourth torrents of water were rushing down the mountain and the desert was once more brown and bare, though not for long, for within another week it was carpeted with flowers.