CHAPTER III: MY FATHER WHILE CAMPING IS ACCOSTED BY PROFESSORS HANKY AND
PANKY


My father found the ascent more fatiguing than he remembered it to have
been. The climb, he said, was steady, and took him between four and five
hours, as near as he could guess, now that he had no watch; but it
offered nothing that could be called a difficulty, and the watercourse
that came down from the saddle was a sufficient guide; once or twice
there were waterfalls, but they did not seriously delay him.

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.