Thus, embittered and with his career in crisis, Johnson had spent the last season, 1864, rounding off his work in the north-eastern corner of Ladakh. In the process he had again beaten his own world altitude record by reaching a point 23,000 feet above sea level. He had also crossed the Karakoram pass and continued for three days towards Yarkand before turning back. At the time the Maharaja of Kashmir, without apparently consulting the British, had established an advance garrison well beyond the pass at a place called Shahidulla. This excursion of Johnson’s was therefore safe enough and though his survey work there was rather haphazard, he was not censured for crossing the frontier.]