CHAPTER XIV.

Start for Karakoram -- Steep ascent out of Nubra valley -- Meet a party of Merchants from Yarkand -- View from summit of pass -- Rapid torrent -- Large glacier -- Steep moraines -- Alpine vegetation -- Numerous glaciers -- Lakes -- Glacier on crest of Sassar pass -- Sassar -- Cross Shayuk river -- Murgai -- Limestone rocks -- Ascend Murgai Valley to 16,800 feet -- Singular limestone formation -- Open plain above 17,000 feet -- Re-cross Shayuk river -- Karakoram pass -- Return to Sassar -- Glaciers of Sassar -- Return to Le -- Start for Kashmir -- Lamayura -- Phatu pass -- Kanji river -- Namika pass -- Molbil Pashkyum -- Kargil -- Dras -- Zoji pass -- Kashmir -- Lahore -- Completion of journey.

Having at last completed the preparations necessary for a journey of twenty days through uninhabited regions, I started on the 9th of August from the village of Taksha. My first day's journey lay up the Nubra valley, which continued wide, though the alluvial platforms were destitute of cultivation, and quite barren. In several places (always opposite to ravines) they were covered with enormous boulders, which had all the appearance of having been brought to the position they occupied by glaciers. Two small villages were seen, both on the west bank of the river. Four miles from Taksha I crossed, by a good wooden bridge, a large stream which descended from the mountains on my right hand through an exceedingly rocky gorge. After seven miles and a half, I found that I had reached the point at which the road followed by the merchants in travelling from Le to Yarkand leaves the valley of Nubra. It was too late in the day to attempt the ascent of the ridge to the right; I therefore encamped in a grove of willows, which formed a belt along the margin of a stream whose bed was now quite dry, its scanty supply of water having been diverted into an artificial channel for the irrigation of a couple of fields of indifferent barley not far off.

In the valley of Nubra, beyond this encamping ground, which is known by the name of Changlung, there are, I believe, only three small villages, the most distant of which appeared to be not more than five or six miles off. In the direction of the valley, which was still north-north-west, very lofty mountains were visible at no great distance, all with snowy tops, and generally with heavy snow-beds and glaciers in their hollows; and according to the statement of my guides, the river at the distance of less than two days' journey issues from beneath a glacier, by which all passage is stopped[24].

[Sidenote: ASCENT OUT OF NUBRA VALLEY. _August, 1848._]

On the 10th of August I started at daybreak, immediately commencing the ascent of the mountain range which enclosed the valley on the east. The mountain was exceedingly steep, indeed almost precipitous, and the road proceeded in a zigzag direction over bare granite rock, with scarce a vestige of vegetation. During the ascent I had a good view of the valley, and of the mountain range which bounded it on the south-west; large patches of snow lay on its peaks, and here and there I saw a small glacier in its ravines. The upper part of the valleys by which these mountains were furrowed had a very moderate slope, but from about 14,000 feet down to the bottom they were extremely abrupt.

[Sidenote: YARKAND MERCHANTS. _August, 1848._]

After about 3500 feet of extremely laborious climbing, I arrived at a small level plain, perhaps two hundred yards long and forty or fifty wide, evidently much frequented as a resting-place by travellers, a small pool of water being the inducement. I here met a party of merchants on their way from Yarkand to Le. Their goods were conveyed by ponies, apparently much exhausted by their long journey through desert country. I had noticed, on the way up the mountain, that the road was lined by numerous skeletons and scattered bones of horses; I had also seen one or two of the same animals recently dead, and the appearance of these loaded ponies enabled me to understand the cause of the great mortality. Many of the unfortunate animals appeared scarcely to have strength to accomplish the few miles of descent which still intervened between them and plenty of food. The main reliance of the merchants for the support of their horses is on corn carried with them, to which there must be a limit, otherwise they would carry nothing but their own food.

[Sidenote: SUMMIT OF PASS. _August, 1848._]

From this halting-place the remainder of the ascent was less abrupt, though still steep and extremely stony. There was, however, a little more vegetation than on the lower part, where the barren rocks, except at the very base, produced scarcely anything but _Ephedra_, a dwarf species of _Rhamnus_, and tufts of the hardy _Statice_. Higher up, several species of _Astragalus_ and _Artemisia_ were plentiful, with _Lithospermum euchromon_, _Dracocephalum heterophyllum_, and several _Chenopodiaceæ_ and grasses. The top of the ridge had an elevation of 15,300 feet, but from its extreme aridity and rockiness, and its consequent elevated temperature, no alpine plants occurred. On reaching the top I was able to see something of the road before me, regarding which I had previously had little information, except in accounts of its extreme difficulty. These I had been inclined to consider exaggerated, but the prospect before me was undoubtedly far from tempting. Immediately below lay a narrow stony valley, to which, from the spot on which I stood, the descent was almost perpendicular. Opposite to me there was a range of mountains higher than that on which I stood, with here and there a patch of snow. The valley below me was partly occupied by a mass of loose alluvial conglomerate, through which the stream had excavated a deep ravine; its direction was south-south-west, and there could be no doubt that the stream which I had crossed the day before, about half-way, was that which drained the valley upon which I now looked down. On the top of the alluvial platform, on the opposite side, there was a narrow strip of green, indicating a small patch of cultivation, without, however, any habitation, the crop being apparently left to its fate till ready for the reaper. In every other direction, stones and snow were alone visible.

[Sidenote: BARREN VALLEY. _August, 1848._]

I descended obliquely into the valley, so as to reach it about a mile and a half higher up than the spot from which it was first visible. The descent was very laborious, a great part of it being covered with loose gravel or coarse sand, produced by the disintegration of the granite rocks. There was rather more vegetation than on the opposite face, and I collected a number of plants which I had not recently met with; a _Nepeta_, _Scrophularia_, _Cicer_, and _Heracleum_, and two shrubby _Potentillæ_, were the commonest species. One of the species of _Potentilla_ (_P. discolor_ of Jacquemont) was remarkable for exciting violent sneezing when touched or shaken; this curious property seemed to be owing to a very fine dust which covered the under surface of the leaves.

After reaching the surface of the alluvial platform overhanging the stream, about half a mile of gentle ascent among large stones brought me, after a journey of ten miles, to my encamping ground. This was a level spot, close to a lateral torrent, which had its source in a snow-bed in the mountains on the left, and was rushing in a most impetuous milk-white torrent over immense boulders, to unite itself to the main stream. The elevation of my camp was about 14,000 feet.

On the morning of the 11th, at starting, I crossed the torrent close to camp. Although much less considerable than it had been the previous afternoon, still, from its great rapidity and the number of boulders in its bed, the crossing was not accomplished without difficulty by the laden animals, who carried the greater part of my baggage. I crossed it myself by leaping from boulder to boulder, which would have been quite impossible in the afternoon of the previous day, when it was swollen by the action of the sun upon the snow. The road lay up the valley parallel to the river, among a most extraordinary accumulation of granite boulders of all sizes, from one to ten feet in diameter, piled upon one another in vast heaps, and evidently transported by a former glacier. After about half a mile, I crossed the river by a wooden bridge of two or three beams, which must have been brought from Nubra for the purpose, as no timber of any sort grows in the valley. The stream was very rapid and muddy. A mile further, a torrent descending from the mountains on the right was crossed, and soon after I got upon the bank of the main stream, now more tranquil and fordable. The road for the remainder of the march lay along its left bank, over boulders and gravel, ascending now and then a little way on steep sloping banks, entirely composed of transported materials. I encamped on a level, somewhat grassy spot of ground, which was evidently commonly used as a halting-place, having travelled only four and a half miles, an unnecessarily short day's work. I had throughout my journey had considerable difficulty in fixing the marches at proper lengths, the inhabitants having no measure of distance but the day's journey. In the present instance, my tent was pitched, and most of the party had commenced to cook, or were dispersed to collect fuel, long before my arrival, so that I was obliged to rest content for the day.

[Sidenote: GLACIER. _August, 1848._]

The course travelled during the day had been north-north-east, but I had evidently arrived nearly as far as was practicable in that direction, for about half a mile in front was the bluff end of a very large glacier, filling up the continuation of the valley. This glacier, which was nearly half a mile wide, was covered almost entirely with stones and earth, very little of its surface being visible, and the dirty black colour of its terminating cliff showing how much soil had been mixed up with it in its progress. The elevation of my tent was about 14,500 feet, and the termination of the glacier may have been 250 feet higher. All around the mountains were very lofty, their tops covered with snow, which nowhere came within 2000 feet at least of the valley, even on northern exposures. Granite was everywhere the prevailing rock, but on the higher mountain slopes, which were often precipitous, it was much intermixed with a dark rock, probably clay-slate.

[Sidenote: ALPINE NETTLE. _August, 1848._]

During the day I had scarcely seen any vegetation, except when close to the edge of the stream. Among the boulders and on the bare stony ground there was frequently not a vestige of herbage. Near one of the ravines I found the white shrubby _Potentilla_, along with an exceedingly pretty prostrate plant, with bright rose-coloured flowers, belonging to the order of _Compositæ_: it was a species of the genus _Allardia_, described by M. Decaisne from the collections of Jacquemont, by whom it was found in Piti. One of the very few alpine plants which I saw during the day was a little gentian, common among the turf close to my tent. Round camp a species of nettle was plentiful, seemingly, like others of the genus, attracted by the nitrogenous nature of the soil of an encamping ground much frequented by shepherds with their flocks. The sting of this nettle, though rather faint, was quite perceptible. It was decidedly an alpine plant, which is rather uncommon, not only in the genus, but the order to which it belongs.

The journey of the 12th of August commenced by a steep ascent into a lateral valley descending from the eastward. The hill-side up which I climbed (apparently the bluff termination of an ancient moraine) was very stony and dry. When a sufficient elevation above my encampment had been gained, I obtained a commanding view of the glacier which occupied the continuation of the main valley. It was nearly straight, and, as I believe, at least five or six miles long; distances, however, are so difficult to estimate on snow, that this must be regarded as a mere guess. The inclination of its surface was considerable; but, while the distance remained doubtful, no just estimate of the height of the ridge from which it descended could be made. On each side, two or three lateral glaciers, descending from the mountains by which it was enclosed, contributed to increase its size, all loaded with heaps of stones, which had at the lower end of the central glacier so accumulated as completely to cover its whole surface.

[Sidenote: MORAINES. _August, 1848._]

After 800 or 1000 feet of ascent I found that I had attained the level of the lateral valley, along which the road ran, and that the remainder of the way was much more gentle, but exceedingly fatiguing, from its excessive roughness, and from the great elevation, which made the slightest exertion difficult. On both sides were high ranges of mountains, which had much snow on their summits, and in one or two ravines there was a small snow-bed or incipient glacier, but the distance from the crest of the ridge not being great, no glacier of any length was formed. On the left hand, the mountains were steeper and higher than those on the right, and several bulky glaciers on very steep slopes occupied their ravines. None of these entered the valley along which my road lay, but their moraines often projected to its very centre, forming immense piles of angular fragments of rocks, which attained, in more than one place, a height of several hundred feet, and indicated that the glaciers had at some former period advanced much further than they now do. The main valley was itself everywhere covered with boulders; in some places large blocks, ten to twenty feet in diameter, were arranged at moderate distances from one another, but more frequently the fragments were all small.

[Sidenote: SASSAR PASS. _August, 1848._]

After the first steep ascent, the slope of the valley was uniformly gentle, except when a steep-sided moraine had to be passed. Latterly a few small patches of snow occurred in the valley. I encamped at 16,600 feet, on a level grassy spot of ground close to a small circular plain resembling the bed of a lake, and still partially covered with snow. The snow level on the mountains to the south had approached within less than one hundred feet of the level of the plain. Though the distance travelled during the day was only six miles, I felt a good deal fatigued, and suffered much from headache, caused by the rarefaction of the air.

From the great quantity of snow on the mountains all around, there had been throughout the day an abundance of moisture, and vegetation was in consequence much more plentiful than usual. The plants were all alpine, and being mostly diminutive, had to be sought in the crevices of rocks, and among the stones which everywhere abounded. The banks of the stream were frequently grassy, and there was a great deal of marshy ground. Most of the plants obtained were in full flower, and the colours were in general very bright, and sufficiently varied. By far the greater part belonged to the same genera which prevail on European mountains, such as _Draba_, _Saxifraga_, _Sibbaldia_, _Potentilla_, _Ranunculus_, _Papaver_, _Pedicularis_, _Cerastium_, _Leontopodium_, and _Saussurea_. The most remarkable forms were three species of _Allardia_, several _Astragali_, a one-flowered _Lychnis_, _Delphinium Brunonianum_, and a _Ligularia_. The alpine nettle was common on many parts of the road, chiefly near places frequented by the shepherds as halting-places.

Next day at starting I proceeded along the edge of the small plain close to which I had been encamped. On the right hand was an ancient moraine, which prevented me from seeing the road in advance. At the upper end of the plain I found a small streamlet running parallel to the moraine; and about a mile from camp I reached the end of a small glacier, from which the streamlet had its origin. Crossing the latter, which was still partially frozen, I ascended in a deep hollow between the left side of the glacier and the moraine. The icy mass had not yet begun to thaw, the temperature being still below freezing. After half a mile I ascended on the surface of the ice, and as soon as I did so, was enabled to see that the glacier had its origin in a ravine on the south, and entered the main valley almost opposite to me. The great body of the ice took a westerly direction, forming the glacier along which I had been travelling; but a portion formed a cliff to the eastward, which dipped abruptly into a small, apparently deep lake. At the distance of perhaps five hundred yards there was another glacier, which descended from a valley in the northern range of mountains, and, like the one on which I stood, presented a perpendicular wall to the little lake. Right and left of the lake were enormous piles of boulders, occupying the interval between its margin and the mountains, or rather filling up a portion of the space which it would otherwise have occupied. Into this very singular hollow I descended, on a steep icy slope, and passing along the northern margin of the lake, ascended on the glacier beyond; as before, between the ice and moraine.

On reaching the surface of the second glacier, I found that a similar but smaller depression lay beyond it to the east, in which also there was a small lake, with another mass of ice beyond it. This third glacier also came from the north, and was a much more formidable mass than those which had already been crossed. It was very steep, and was covered with snow, which was beginning to thaw more than was convenient. When at the highest part, I found that though apparently nearly level, it sloped downwards sensibly, though very slightly for nearly half a mile, in an easterly direction. It was evident that I had now reached the highest part of the ascent, and that the crest of the pass was covered by this glacier. I did not make any observation to determine its altitude, but the ascent from camp was very moderate, not, I think, exceeding a thousand feet. Assuming this estimate to be correct, the height of the pass would be about 17,600 feet, which I believe will prove not far from the truth.

On so icy an ascent vegetation could not be expected to be plentiful; still, even in the depressions between the glaciers, the crevices among the boulders produced a few plants, mostly the same as those observed the day before, but three species of _Saussurea_ were the most common of all. Before arriving at the first glacier, the beautiful _Primula_ collected on the pass above Le was met with in great abundance.

[Sidenote: SASSAR. _August, 1848._]

For about half a mile, as I have said, the slope of the glacier was just perceptible; beyond that distance the descent was abrupt. On reaching the end of the level portion, I obtained an excellent view to the eastward, in which direction a wide valley was seen at a distance of several miles. Through this valley, from left to right, ran a considerable river, which proved to be the Shayuk. Beyond the river, rocky mountains were seen, apparently nearly as high as those near at hand, and perfectly barren. In descending from the pass, I soon left the surface of the ice, which, as soon as the slope became abrupt, was too rugged to be walked over. I then got upon the moraine; about half-way down, the glacier, which had latterly been almost entirely covered with debris, came to an end, but a moraine continued a long way down, and the remainder of the descent was very stony. I encamped at about 15,400 feet on a dry gravelly plain, close to the broad valley of the Shayuk, but at least 500 feet above it. To the right, in a very deep ravine, was a small stream, on the banks of which were patches of snow. The name of the ground on which I encamped, which is a usual halting-place, was Sassar, and the Turki merchants call the pass also by the same name.

[Sidenote: PLAIN OF SHAYUK RIVER. _August, 1848._]

From Sassar not more than three or four miles of the upward course of the river were visible, but within that distance three glaciers were in sight. Two of these stopped short of the valley, while the third, which was at the most distant point visible, appeared to descend to the river. An enormous precipice, which must have been at least 3000 feet in height, rose on the opposite side of the valley beyond the glaciers. Downward the valley of the Shayuk was seen for nearly ten miles, as a wide gravelly plain, with high rugged mountains on both sides.

On the morning after my arrival at Sassar, it was snowing slightly at daybreak, and continued to do so till near noon. The snow melted almost immediately on the level ground, but on the mountain-sides it lay all day, down as low as the level of my tent. The afternoon was dull and stormy, but no more snow fell. This unfavourable weather was of less consequence, because I had determined to halt in order to make fresh arrangements for my baggage, being advised not to take any cattle beyond Sassar, the roads in advance being very bad. I afterwards found that they were gravelly, which is more injurious than even rock to the unprotected feet of the Tibetan bullock.

The gravelly sloping hills round my encampment were covered with abundance of vegetation, but few of the species were alpine, and almost all were familiar to me. A species of _Allium_, with purple flowers and broad strap-shaped leaves, was the most plentiful of all. _Thermopsis_ was frequent, in fruit; other common plants were species of _Artemisia_, _Cynoglossum_, _Cicer_, and _Dracocephalum_. The only new species were a very handsome dark purple _Nepeta_, which grew in large tufts among loose shingle, and a tall _Saussurea_, by far the largest species of the genus which I had found in Tibet, but I believe one of those described from Jacquemont's collections. A species of _Rheum_ occurred occasionally on dry stony places, but it was the same which I had found several times before.

On the 15th of August I resumed my journey. The morning was misty, with a few flakes of snow at intervals, and the sky remained overcast all day, with high squalls of wind. My road lay across the Shayuk, but I found it necessary to ascend about half a mile on the high bank before I reached a place where it was possible to descend to its gravelly plain, which was more than half a mile wide, and quite destitute of any kind of vegetation. The river was running in several channels, with an average depth of about a foot and a half; in one place only it was as much as two feet. The current ran with considerable rapidity.

On the opposite side of the plain of the Shayuk, I entered an extremely narrow ravine, bounded by precipices of black slate, down which ran a small stream, which crossed at every turn of the ravine from one side to the other, generally close to the rocky wall, and had to be forded a great number of times. After a mile and a half, the road, suddenly quitting the ravine, turned to the right, and ascended by a steep pathway to a wide, very gently rising plain, bounded on both sides by snowy mountains. This plain was partly grassy, but mostly composed of hard dry clay. In a few spots where snow appeared recently to have lain, the clay was soft and treacherous, sinking under the feet. About a mile's walk over this plain brought me to the highest part of it, beyond which it began to slope to the eastward, at first very gently but afterwards more rapidly. Many large isolated boulders were observed on its surface. It was curious to observe that the gravel produced by the disintegration of the mountains (chiefly, I suppose, by snow-slips in winter) differed in colour on the two sides of the valley, and that the line of demarcation followed very closely the centre of the valley. The northern mountains, being granitic, produced a hard quartzy gravel, while those to the south, which were schistose, contributed a dark-coloured gravel of sharp slaty fragments. On the lower part of the descent, a small rivulet made its appearance in the centre of the plain, and I encamped, after nine and a half miles, close to an open valley of considerable size, whose course seemed to be south-east.

[Sidenote: MURGAI. _August, 1848._]

This encamping-ground is called by the Turki merchants Murgai, by the Tibetans, Murgo-Chumik; the former name being probably a corruption of the latter. It was the last place at which I was to expect a sufficiency of fuel, or even, with rare exceptions, of grass for my horse, which, though not often used, I was unwilling to leave behind, lest I should by any accident be disabled from walking. The temperature of boiling water here indicated an elevation of about 15,100 feet, but as the weather was stormy and threatening, this was probably several hundred feet more than the truth. A number of springs appeared to break out of the ground close to my tent, where there was a considerable extent of boggy pasture, much greener than is usual at so great an elevation. A few bushes of _Myricaria elegans_ were the only shrubs, but tufts of _Artemisia_ and _Eurotia_ were sufficiently plentiful to produce an abundance of fuel. In the boggy meadow, a pretty little species of _Primula_ was very abundant; the other plants observed were a white _Pedicularis_, two species of _Triglochin_, and some _Carices_ and grasses.

The morning of the 16th of August was bright and beautiful, the clouds having been entirely dissipated during the night. The wide valley near which I was encamped descended, as I was informed, to the Shayuk, which it was said to join through a rocky gorge eight or ten miles lower down than Sassar. Along its course the merchants are in the habit of ascending at the season when the valley of the Shayuk is followed all the way from Nubra, which is only practicable in early spring and late in the autumn, at which times that river is fordable throughout. It is a fortunate circumstance for the trade that there is thus a choice of routes, for at these seasons the Sassar pass must be in a great measure blocked up with snow.

[Sidenote: ASCENT OF MURGAI VALLEY. _August, 1848._]

On my arrival at Murgai, I had observed that the mountains to the north were very precipitous, and had been puzzled to decide what direction the road might take. On starting, however, I found that it lay along the upward course of the stream which watered the valley before me, and which here issued from the mountains through a very narrow ravine with high precipices on both sides. At first I ascended to the top of a platform of conglomerate which lay at the base of the mountains. The ground was strewed with fragments of limestone, evidently derived from the mountains above; and about half a mile from camp I passed a calcareous spring which had deposited large quantities of tufa throughout the whole of the space between its source and the face of the precipice which overhung the river: the thickness of the incrustation was, in front of the cliff, from six to eight feet. A little further on, the road descended abruptly to the stream, and, after crossing it several times within a few hundred yards, ascended equally abruptly the steep stony slopes on its left bank, at a point where its course, which had previously been nearly north, turned rather suddenly to the eastward. On emerging from the ravine, two small glaciers came in sight almost directly opposite, in branches of a narrow and very deep gorge, which descended from the mountains to the north nearly in the original direction of the ravine. The road ascended to the height of at least 1000 feet, and then proceeded along the steep slopes, alternately ascending and descending over very stony ground, occasionally covered with loose limestone shingle. The stream was visible below, running through a narrow rocky fissure.

After about a mile and a half, the road again descended to the river, now a little wider, with a gravelly channel. Here I found that there were two roads. One of these, for loaded animals, ascended steeply on the north side, to the height of nearly 1000 feet, and again descended very abruptly. The other was in the bed of the stream, which was partially filled up with huge blocks of rock. The stream being almost dry, I took the lower road, which for pedestrians was only objectionable from its great roughness, and because it was necessary to cross the rivulet occasionally. After about a quarter of a mile, the ravine suddenly opened out into a gravelly plain nearly half a mile in width, traversed by numerous branches of the little stream: these were now almost dry, owing to the cloudy weather of the last few days having in a great measure stopped the melting of the glaciers by which they were supplied. Along this open plain I continued for nearly five miles. In one place only it contracted again for a few hundred yards into a gorge full of huge rocky masses heaped one on another, by which it was apparently quite blocked up; this however was avoided by a slight ascent among angular limestone fragments. On descending into the plain again, I observed a very small patch of grassy ground on a bank a few feet above the level of the stream, the only herbage seen during the day. About a mile further on I encamped, after a march of nine miles, on the south side of the plain, on a dry bank elevated four or five feet above its gravelly bed. There was a sudden change in the direction of the valley just at my encamping-ground, its further course being in a direction west of north. The elevation of my tent was very nearly 16,000 feet.

High, rugged, precipitous mountains, with snowy tops, rose on both sides of the road during the whole of this day's journey. The rock throughout the day was limestone, a few thin layers of slate excepted. It varied much in colour, but was generally very dark and highly crystalline, and often contained large masses of white calcareous spar. It was distinctly stratified, and occasionally exhibited obscure traces of what might be fossils, but which were too indistinct to be relied upon. The principal mass of snow seen was nearly due south of my encampment, but this was probably owing to the northerly exposure of the mountains on that side. The vegetation observed during the day was scanty in the extreme; _Eurotia_, a _Saussurea_ with very viscid leaves, _Oxytropis chiliophylla_, and _Biebersteinia odora_ being almost the only plants on the stony slopes and shingle during the first half of the way. On the gravelly plain there was no vegetation at all, but on its margins a few scattered plants were occasionally to be found, a _Pyrethrum_ and two or three _Cruciferæ_ being the species noted. The most remarkable plant observed during the day was a species of _Alsine_ in dense hemispherical tufts, a foot or more in diameter. This plant (the moss of Moorcroft's visit to Garu, and of other travellers in and on the borders of Tibet) is a common Tibetan plant at very great elevations, 16,000 feet being perhaps not far from its lowest level[25].

On the 17th my road lay entirely along the gravelly plain in a direction always considerably to the west of north. The plain gradually narrowed as I advanced, and came to an end by contracting into a rocky ravine, just as I halted for the day. The mountains on the left were still very lofty; one glacier was seen on that side. On the right the mountains were lower and quite without snow, but extremely rugged and rocky. The slope of the valley was scarcely perceptible, but I found at the end of my day's journey, which amounted to twelve miles, that I had risen above 700 feet, the height of my encampment being a little more than 16,700 feet. The day was bright and sunny, and the stream, which, in the morning was quite insignificant, not three feet wide and scarcely ankle-deep, had increased much by the afternoon, and had become of a dirty red colour. It was twenty feet wide, and a foot and a half deep, where I crossed it just before halting. The vegetation was still more scanty than the day before, though most of the plants then noted were again seen occasionally. Small tufts of a little _Stipa_ were not uncommon, constituting almost the only food for cattle, as patches of green grass, a few feet in diameter, were only seen twice during the day. Two very small _Saussureæ_ formed dense tufted masses on the surface of the ground, and a little rose-coloured _Astragalus_ spread itself prostrate over the gravel; indeed, this mode of growth seemed to be characteristic either of the climate or soil, as I found, though rarely, a species of _Myricaria_, with short thick wiry branches lying flat on the ground and spreading into patches a yard in diameter.

[Sidenote: REMARKABLE LIMESTONE. _August, 1848._]

Not far from the point where the direction of the valley changed so suddenly, the blue or greyish massive but brittle limestone of the higher mountains gave place to a rock of a very different appearance. This was also a limestone, perfectly white, or with a very faint yellowish or greyish tinge, and either quite amorphous, with a saccharine texture, and often honeycombed, or composed of a congeries of very minute crystals. Occasionally, but rarely, rolled pebbles were seen in it. No traces of stratification were anywhere discoverable, in which respect it differed very strikingly from the limestone of the previous day, in which lines of stratification, much contorted, were well seen in many sections exposed at different heights. This remarkable limestone formed the rock on both sides of the gravelly plain during the greater part of the day's journey. In one place only metamorphic slate was seen below it, dipping at a high angle to the north-east. The limestone was extremely brittle, and the cliffs terminated above in sharp pinnacles of the most fantastic shapes, while at the base they were covered with heaps of angular debris[26]. A coarse conglomerate replaced the limestone during the last mile previous to my encamping.

[Sidenote: ELEVATED PLAIN OF KARAKORAM. _August, 1848._]

On the 18th of August, after following for a few hundred yards the course of the stream through a narrow rocky gorge, the road turned abruptly to the right, up a dry stony ravine, ascending rather rapidly. The coarse conglomerate of the lower part of this ravine was succeeded by a coarse sandstone, and that again by an incoherent alluvial conglomerate with a clayey matrix. After a short distance, the ravine widened out into a narrow, gravelly, moderately steep valley, with low rounded hills on either side. By degrees, as I increased my elevation, superb snowy mountains came in sight to the south-west, and on attaining the top of the ascent an open, gravelly, somewhat undulating plain lay before me, while behind a grand snowy range was seen in perfection, forming apparently a continuous chain, with a direction from south-east to north-west. The snow was to the eye perfectly continuous in both directions as far as the mountains were visible, and appeared everywhere to lie on the mountain-sides to three and four thousand feet below their tops. As I had passed through this apparent chain of mountains without rising above 16,000 feet, the continuity of the snowy mass was of course a deception. Many very lofty peaks rose above the others at intervals. The height of the more distant ones I could not venture to estimate, but I felt at the time fully convinced that a very high peak, just opposite to me, and distant, according to bearings taken afterwards, about ten miles (in a direct line) from the edge of the plain, was 6000 or 7000 feet higher than the ground on which I stood, or at least 24,000 feet above the level of the sea. I do not wish that any great degree of confidence should be placed on this estimate, but I think it right that I should state my impression at the time, formed without any wish to exaggerate.

The stream along which I had ascended during the two last days lay in a deep ravine far below the level of the plain. Its source was evidently not far distant, and it issued no doubt from a large glacier at the head of the gorge, though the slight upward slope of the plain to the west prevented me from seeing its precise origin. In a northerly direction the plain appeared to extend for six or seven miles, and beyond it lay several ranges of mountains running from east to west, but only very moderately patched with snow. Eastward the plain diminished slightly in elevation for four or five miles, at which distance there was a low range of hills, and immediately at their foot a small stream apparently running to the northward. Beyond these low hills were a number of lofty black peaks to the northward of the great mass of snow, on the further side of which the country probably dips to the eastward in the direction of Khoten. Every one of my guides positively denied the existence of any road in that direction; afraid, perhaps, that I might attempt to proceed by it; for I learned afterwards, on my return to Le, from a merchant of Yarkand, that there was an unfrequented path by which Khoten might be reached, if the Chinese authorities were willing to permit it to be used.

My road lay across the open plain in a direction very little west of north. The surface of the ground was covered with a few boulders and many small pebbles, for the most part rolled, and very various in composition; granite, greenstones of many sorts, amygdaloid, limestone, and different-coloured slates, being all seen. Many of these were encrusted with a calcareous concretion, and the whole plain had the appearance of having formerly been the bed of a lake. Skeletons and scattered bones of horses indicated with great exactness the road across this arid tract, which seemed to be almost destitute of either animal life or vegetation. The only living beings seen were a few ravens, a hoopoe, and a small bird somewhat like a sparrow. Tufts of the moss-like _Alsine_, referred to on the 17th, were the only vegetation, except in the bed of a little rivulet near the middle of the plain, which produced a few specimens of _Saussurea_ and _Sibbaldia_. This streamlet rose in a large patch of snow about half a mile to the westward, and ran towards the east, turning afterwards nearly due north along the foot of a low range of hills mentioned above. The elevation of its bed, which was the lowest part of the table-land in the direction in which I crossed it, was 17,300 feet, and the lowest part of the plain was immediately under the low hills to the eastward, where it probably was about 17,000 feet.

There was no snow on the plain, except one patch close to its highest part, in which the little rivulet had its source, and a very few remnants on the shady side of a low undulating ridge, which crosses it near its northern border. After about five miles, having been ascending very gradually since leaving the banks of the stream, I passed through an opening between two low gravelly hills, and found myself looking down upon a wide valley, into which I descended very gradually along a dry ravine. Passing a small patch of swampy, grassy ground, at which I left my horse with a servant till my return, as there was no food for him further on, I arrived, about two miles from the point at which the valley just came in sight, at a small river about thirty feet wide and ankle-deep, running from east to west. According to the information of my guides, this was the river which runs past Sassar,--in fact, the Shayuk. None of them had followed its course, but they assured me that there was no doubt of the accuracy of their statement, which indeed is confirmed by the fact (which I mention on the authority of Yarkand merchants) that formerly travellers used to ascend the Shayuk from Sassar, in order to reach the Karakoram pass, instead of pursuing the circuitous route by which I travelled; but that about ten or twelve years ago the glaciers above Sassar descended so low as entirely to prevent any one passing in that direction, for which reason it became necessary to adopt a new road[27].

[Sidenote: SHAYUK RIVER. _August, 1848._]

The course of the Shayuk was visible for several miles, running nearly due west. Beyond that distance, it disappeared among rocky hills. Fording the river, I ascended a steep bank, to get upon a stony platform, over which I proceeded in a northerly direction, gradually approaching a small stream which came from the north to join the Shayuk. Passing a low rounded hill to the right, I descended after about two miles into the ravine excavated by this little stream, and, crossing it, encamped under low limestone rocks on its right bank after a march of twelve miles. I did not ascertain the elevation of this halting-ground, but, from the result of an experiment made at a place which appeared nearly midway (in point of elevation) between it and the bed of the Shayuk, where I got a boiling-point, indicating an elevation of 17,000 feet, I estimate the bed of the river at 16,800 feet, and my encamping-ground of the 18th at 17,200 feet. The plain all round seemed destitute of vegetation, so that, as on the two last days, there was a great scarcity of fuel, which had to be collected from a distance of many miles; and consisted only of the roots of a small bushy _Artemisia_ or _Tanacetum_, which rose three or four inches above the ground. During these three days, I suffered very considerably from the effects of the rarefaction of the air, being never free from a dull headache, which was increased on the slightest exertion.

[Sidenote: KARAKORAM PASS. _August, 1848._]

On the 19th of August, leaving my tent standing, I started to visit the Karakoram pass, the limit of my journey to the northward. The country round my halting-place was open, except to the north, where a stream descended through a narrow valley from a range of hills, the highest part of which was apparently about 3000 feet above me. All the rivers had formed for themselves depressions in the platform of gravel which was spread over the plain. At first I kept on the south bank of the river close to which I had halted, but about a mile from camp I crossed a large tributary which descended from the south-west, and soon after, turning round the rocky termination of a low range of hills, entered a narrow valley which came from a little west of north-west. At the foot of the rocky point of the range were three very small huts, built against the rock as a place of shelter for travellers, in case of stormy or snowy weather; and bones of horses were here scattered about the plain in greater profusion than usual.

[Sidenote: VEGETATION OF KARAKORAM _August, 1848._]

I ascended this valley for about six miles: its width varied from 200 yards to about half a mile, gradually widening as I ascended. The slope was throughout gentle. An accumulation of alluvium frequently formed broad and gently sloping banks, which were cut into cliffs by the river. Now and then large tracts covered with glacial boulders were passed over; and several small streams were crossed, descending from the northern mountains through narrow ravines. About eight miles from my starting-point the road left the bank of the stream, and began to ascend obliquely and gradually on the sides of the hills. The course of the valley beyond where I left it continued unaltered, sloping gently up to a large snow-bed, which covered the side of a long sloping ridge four or five miles off. After a mile, I turned suddenly to the right, and, ascending very steeply over fragments of rock for four or five hundred yards, I found myself on the top of the Karakoram pass--a rounded ridge connecting two hills which rose somewhat abruptly to the height of perhaps 1000 feet above me. The height of the pass was 18,200 feet, the boiling-point of water being 180·8°, and the temperature of the air about 50°. Towards the north, much to my disappointment, there was no distant view. On that side the descent was steep for about 500 yards, beyond which distance a small streamlet occupied the middle of a very gently sloping valley, which curved gradually to the left, and disappeared behind a stony ridge at the distance of half a mile. The hills opposite to me were very abrupt, and rose a little higher than the pass; they were quite without snow, nor was there any on the pass itself, though large patches lay on the shoulder of the hill to the right. To the south, on the opposite side of the valley which I had ascended, the mountains, which were sufficiently high to exclude entirely all view of the lofty snowy mountain seen the day before, were round-topped and covered with snow. Vegetation was entirely wanting on the top of the pass, but the loose shingle with which it was covered was unfavourable to the growth of plants, otherwise, no doubt, lichens at least would have been seen. Large ravens were circling about overhead, apparently quite unaffected by the rarity of the atmosphere, as they seemed to fly with just as much ease as at the level of the sea.

The great extent of the modern alluvial deposit concealed in a great measure the ancient rocks. At my encampment a ridge of very hard limestone, dipping at a high angle, skirted the stream. Further up the valley a hard slate occurred, and in another place a dark blue slate, containing much iron pyrites, and crumbling rapidly when exposed to the atmosphere. Fragments of this rock were scattered over the plain in all states of decay. On the crest of the pass the rock _in situ_ was limestone, showing obscure traces of fossils, but too indistinct to be determined; the shingle, which was scattered over the ridge, was chiefly a brittle black clay-slate.

On my return no plants were met with till I had almost reached the bank of the stream. The first species which occurred was a small purple-flowered _Crucifera_ (_Parrya exscapa_ of Meyer). Throughout the day the number of flowering plants observed was seventeen, of which three were grasses, three _Saussureæ_, and two _Cruciferæ_; there was also one species of each of the following genera, _Aster_, _Nepeta_, _Gymnandra_, _Sedum_, _Lychnis_, _Potentilla_, and _Phaca_; the dense-tufted _Alsine_, and a shrubby _Artemisia_ with yellow flowers, complete the number. The only animals seen, besides ravens, were a bird about the size of a sparrow, a bright metallic-coloured carrion-fly, and a small dusky butterfly. Returning by the same road, I arrived at my tent a little after sunset, the distance from the top of the pass being about ten miles.

[Sidenote: MURGAI RIVER. _August, 1848._]

While travelling at these great elevations the weather was uniformly serene and beautiful. There was but little wind, and the sky was bright and cloudless. At night the cold was severe, and the edges of the streams were in the morning always frozen. On my return towards Sassar I found that the bright sunny weather which had continued since the 16th, had made a great alteration in the state of the stream in the wide gravelly valley along which the road ran. It was now impetuous and muddy, increasing considerably towards the afternoon, when it ran in several channels, which were not always easily fordable. In some places the gravel was throughout the whole width of the plain saturated with water, and gave way under the feet, so that it became necessary to ascend on the stony sloping banks on one side or other, instead of following the centre of the valley. At Murgai, on the evening of the 23rd of August, just after sunset, I felt three slight shocks of an earthquake. On that day the weather again became dull, and on the morning of the 24th there was a slight fall of snow for about an hour.

The remarkable open plain to the south of the Karakoram pass occupies a deep concavity in the great chain of the Kouenlun, which there appears to form a curve, the convexity of which looks northward. The main range to the eastward was distinctly visible, forming a range of snowless, but certainly very lofty, black peaks beyond the sources of the most eastern branch of the Shayuk; while the heavily-snowed mountains, the summits of which were seen further east, were probably also a part of the axis of the chain, which apparently bends round the sources of the river of Khoten, or of some stream draining the northern flanks of the Kouenlun. To the westward, no peaks rose behind the snowy ridge which terminated the western branch of the Shayuk a little west of the Karakoram pass, beyond which the surface probably dips, while the axis of the Kouenlun bends to the southward, towards the glaciers of the Nubra river.

[Sidenote: SNOW LEVEL. _August, 1848._]

In crossing the open plain on my return towards Sassar, I had the splendid snowy peaks to the south-west always in view, and was able to form a tolerable estimate of their appearance and elevation. The range was very heavily snowed, and from the lateness of the season but little additional thaw could be expected. What seemed the highest peak was very near, and its position could be determined by bearings with little risk of error. It rose abruptly in the midst of a great mass of snow, which filled the hollows and slopes of the range all around. The surface of the plain over which I was travelling sloped very gently up to the westward, and partly concealed the lower edge of the perpetual snow on the mountains behind, the limit of which was, I think, between 17,500 and 18,000 feet. To the northward and eastward the snow-line was certainly much higher. Here and there, where there was shade, there were patches below 18,000 feet, but even up to 20,000 feet there was no continuous snow. As the source of the snow-fall on these mountains is no doubt the Indian Ocean to the south-west, the gradual rise of the snow-level in advancing north-east, and the occurrence of the highest peaks, and of the greatest mass of snow on branches of the chain, and not on its main axis, are quite in accordance with what is usually the case throughout every part of the Himalaya.

The occurrence of a nearly level plain, six or eight miles in diameter, with a mean elevation of not less than 17,300 feet, is certainly very remarkable. The ridge or watershed of the plain appeared to me parallel to the deep ravine, excavated by the stream along which I had travelled on the 17th of August, and at no great distance from it, as the descent was abrupt. All the northern and western part of this level tract was composed of loosely cohering matters, and was possibly of lacustrine origin; but a much more accurate acquaintance with the outline, structure, and elevation of the plain will be necessary before any certain conclusion can be drawn as to its age or origin.

[Sidenote: GLACIERS OF SASSAR. _August, 1848._]

Before leaving Sassar, I visited the glaciers which descend into the valley of the Shayuk, a little to the north of that place. The path at first lay along the high platform on which I was encamped, which was precipitous towards the Shayuk; it afterwards descended to the level of the river, close to which I travelled for some distance over enormous boulders. The bluff ends of two glaciers were seen high above at the top of the precipitous alluvial bank, and after a walk of upwards of three miles, I arrived at a most superb glacier, which, descending a broad and deep valley in the mountains, and latterly in the alluvial platform, entered the bed of the Shayuk at the bottom of a deep bend, and fairly crossed the river, which flowed out below the ice. On the opposite side of the river, the mountains were precipitous a few hundred feet from the water's edge, but the stream of ice did not extend to the foot of the precipice, but stopped a very few feet up the opposite bank. I could of course only see the position of the ice at the edge of the glacier: how far it extended in the centre I could not tell.

The glacier was extremely rugged, being covered with huge sharp pinnacles of ice, and I was obliged to ascend a long way parallel to its side before I could find a place where it could be crossed. Near its lower extremity it rose high above the surface of the plain, and sloped rapidly down to the river: its sides were there scarped and inaccessible, but higher up it lay in a deep hollow in the alluvial conglomerate. A moment's reflection showed how impossible it was for clay and boulders to resist the friction of such an enormous mass; still I was much pleased to observe the glacier buried, as it were, in a groove of its own forming, from the light which was thereby thrown on the origin of the many broad, shallow, flat-bottomed valleys which occasionally occur in the modern alluvial and lacustrine formations in all parts of Tibet, as for instance at Karsar in Nubra, and at Bazgo below Le. An ancient moraine, deposited at a period when the glacier must have been much more bulky than it now is, skirted the edge of the high bank of alluvium, and prevented the ice from being seen till close at hand, and then only by mounting on the top of the pile of boulders. Down this moraine, which on the face towards the glacier was extremely steep and perhaps sixty feet high, I descended to the surface of the present moraine. The descent required great caution, many of the blocks being loose and easily displaced. When I had reached the surface of the glacier, the passage was not difficult. About a quarter of its width on each side was occupied by blocks of stone; the centre was almost entirely ice, extremely irregular, and here and there a little fissured. The pathway, which was only marked by the footsteps of two men whom I had sent the day before to select a place for crossing, at one time ascended to the top of a ridge of ice, at another descended into a deep hollow. At the time I crossed (about eleven A.M.) numerous streams of water had begun to flow in furrows on the surface of the ice. The whole width was close upon half a mile, and on the north side I ascended a steep moraine similar to that which I had previously descended.

From the top of the bank on which the moraine rested, a second glacier came in sight at the distance of a mile. My exploring party reported that they had been unable to find a point at which this glacier could be crossed, and as from the appearance of the mountains behind I felt certain that after crossing it I should only arrive at a third, I did not long persevere in trying to find a passage, but descended to its extremity in order to see whether or not I could walk round it, as it did not appear to enter the water. At the bottom of the valley it spread out in a fan-shaped manner to the width of at least a mile; perhaps indeed much more, for as I failed in getting round it, I was unable to ascertain precisely. At its south-east corner, where it was nearly a hundred yards from the river, a considerable stream, white with suspended mud, was rushing out from beneath an arched vault of ice, even before sunrise. To avoid fording this icy stream, the margins of which were thickly frozen, I crossed with a good deal of difficulty an angle of the end of the glacier. On its surface I found several small moraines, which had sunk down into grooves ten or fifteen feet deep, and had therefore been invisible from outside. Further progress on the ice was stopped by cliffs which were not accessible without ladders, so that I had to descend to the bank of the Shayuk. I walked along between the ice and the river, till my advance was stopped by the glacier fairly projecting into the water in such a manner that I could not see anything of what lay beyond. The icy wall being quite inaccessible, I could not get upon the surface of the glacier to attempt to advance in that way, nor could I ford the river, which was very deep.

The terminal cliff of the glacier varied in height from fifteen to thirty feet, and a talus of large stones lay in front, evidently deposited by it. Indeed, while I was there I saw several small stones which projected from the face of the cliff, drop out by the melting of the ice in which they were imbedded. Many cavities were seen in the ice, from which large stones must have dropped out no longer ago than the day before, and the stones which corresponded in size to them were seen lying close at hand. Before I left the front of the glacier, the heat of the sun having become considerable, rapid thaw had commenced; rills of water trickled down its face in every direction, and the sound of falling stones was to be heard on all sides. Now and then a report as loud as that of a cannon was heard, caused, as I supposed, by the fall of a very large boulder from one of the smaller glaciers, which stopped abruptly at the top of the high cliff of alluvium.

Before quitting finally these magnificent glaciers, I ascended to a height on the mountain-side in order to see whether or not there was any lake in sight corresponding to that laid down, from information, by Mr. Vigne as Nubra or Khundan Chu. The mountains were very steep and stony, and were covered above 16,000 feet with snow, which had fallen in a storm a few days before; I did not, therefore, get up to any great elevation, probably not beyond 16,500 feet, but at that height I could see nothing of the river beyond the second glacier, though its course through the mountains could be traced distinctly enough. It is, however, highly improbable that any permanent lake exists. Such could, I think, only be formed by the stoppage of the river by a glacier, an obstruction which could only be temporary, and would inevitably be followed by a terrific inundation, such as is known repeatedly to have devastated the valley of the Shayuk.

[Sidenote: RETURN TO LE. _August, 1848._]

It had been my original intention, on my return from Karakoram, to follow the course of the Shayuk all the way from Sassar to Nubra, but on my return to the former place after visiting the pass, I found that there was no probability of the road along the river being practicable for at least three weeks, the depth of the stream, which requires frequently to be forded, being still much too great; I was therefore reluctantly compelled to return by the same route as that by which I had reached Sassar. Early in September, I found the crops in Nubra ripe, the barley being mostly cut; buckwheat and a few fields of millet, however, were still quite green. The Shayuk had very considerably diminished in size: one branch which in July had been three feet deep was quite dry on the 6th of September. On the 11th of that month I crossed the pass above Le, the state of which was a good deal altered. The little lake, which on the 20th of July was still frozen over, was now free of ice, nor was there any snow, except a very few small patches, below the steep snow-bank on the northern side. The snow, which had covered this steep descent, had melted away, exposing a mass of ice, which was not crossed without a good deal of difficulty and some little risk. Loaded cattle were unable to get to the top of the pass till the afternoon. The snow on the south face had almost entirely gone.

I reached Le just in time to escape some very unsettled weather, during which snow fell on the mountains down to about 13,000 feet. This was ushered in by very high wind, blowing in gusts from all points of the compass. Heavy clouds formed, but always high: on the 14th there was a good deal of thunder, and during the following night a smart shower of rain, which lasted about an hour.

The inhabitants were busy with the operations of harvest. A coarse knife or rude sickle was employed to cut the wheat and barley as close to the ground as possible; they were then tied into large bundles, each sufficient for one load, which were carried (usually by women) to the threshing-floors, not without considerable loss, from the ripeness of the ears and the great bulk of the loads, which were rubbed against every obstacle, particularly the narrow walls of the pathways between the fields. The grain was trodden out of the ear by cattle and asses, all muzzled, on small threshing-floors made of clay beaten hard. It was then winnowed, by being gently shaken out of flat vessels held as high as possible above the ground.

On the 15th of September I left Le for Kashmir. For five days my route was the same as that by which I had travelled in July. On the fourth day I reached Kalatze on the Indus, and on the 19th of September I encamped at the village of Lama-Yuru, close to which the road from Zanskar joins that along which I proposed to travel towards Dras. In the valley of the Indus a great part of the vegetation was already destroyed by the night frosts; _Chenopodiaceæ_ were now the most numerous family, and these were rapidly ripening their seeds. In the narrow ravine of the Wandla river, on the ascent to Lama-Yuru, I found a few plants indicative of lower and hotter regions than those in which I had lately been travelling: a little wiry _Lactuca_ with decurrent leaves, a spathulate-leaved _Statice_, and a small _Hyoscyamus_, all plants of the neighbourhood of Iskardo, were those which I noted.

[Sidenote: PHATU PASS. _September, 1848._]

On the 20th of September I crossed the Phatu pass, stated by Moorcroft to be 14,000 feet above the sea, but which Major Cunningham has ascertained to be only about 13,500 feet. The discrepancy is probably owing to some error in Moorcroft's manuscripts, from which the elevations given in his work were calculated by Professor Wilson. In the neighbourhood of Lama-Yuru lacustrine clay occurs in great abundance, and the ascent to the summit of this pass was gentle, up a gravelly valley, which was full of alluvium, almost to the very summit. The pass did not nearly attain the elevation requisite for alpine vegetation, still the flora was a good deal altered; two large-flowered thistles, _Caragana versicolor_, and several species of _Umbelliferæ_ were observed, none of which had occurred in the hills to the north of the Indus; the prickly _Statice_ was also common, but the _Chenopodiaceæ_ of the Indus valley had entirely disappeared. The descent along the Kanji river to Karbu, at which I encamped, was long and gradual, down a wide valley skirted by gently sloping hills, which, at some distance on the left, rose into high mountains, but on the right attained only a moderate elevation, the Indus being at no great distance. Alluvium occurred throughout the descent, latterly indurated into a coarse conglomerate.

[Sidenote: NAMIKA PASS. _September, 1848._]

From Karbu I marched on the 21st to Molbil, crossing the Namika pass. The previous night had been very threatening, with violent wind, and at daybreak all the hills around were covered with snow; it was still snowing slightly, but none lay in the valley, and before nine o'clock it cleared, and the remainder of the forenoon was tolerably fine. For two miles I followed the banks of the Kanji river; afterwards the road turned to the left to ascend a clayey valley, to the rounded summit of a ridge separating that river from the Pashkyum on the left. The pass has been determined by Major Cunningham, who crossed it in October, 1847, to be 12,900 feet above the sea. The descent was long, but not rapid after the first mile. The upper part was desert, but lower down villages were frequent and cultivation extensive. At first the rocks were clay-slate, but these were replaced in the lower part by a hard limestone; alluvium was everywhere plentiful, forming, near Molbil, table-topped platforms of indurated conglomerate, horizontally stratified, and faced towards the stream by scarped cliffs. The afternoon was again stormy, and a good deal of rain fell during the night.

[Sidenote: PASHKYUM. _September, 1848._]

Next day I made a long march to Pashkyum, following the course of the river of that name. The descent was very gradual, and the road varied much in character, the valley being sometimes open, at other times narrow and rocky. The villages increased in numbers as the elevation diminished, and latterly for several miles cultivation was continuous. Pashkyum is not more than 8600 feet above the sea, and accordingly the season was much less advanced than it had been three and four thousand feet higher, the weather being much milder, and the summer heat no doubt much more considerable than in the neighbourhood of Le. The crops had long been cut, except the buckwheat, the fields of which were however quite ripe; the plants were being plucked up by the roots and laid down separately in the fields to dry, previous to removal to the threshing-floor.

A remarkable change had taken place in the appearance of the country during this day's journey. The banks of the river were frequently shaded with immense willows, and the trees of the cultivated lands were numerous and of great size. Many new forms of plants were also seen, though the general character of the flora was unaltered. Shrubby _Artemisiæ_ were extremely plentiful, and the _Perowskia_, _Ballota_, _Echinops_, and _Iris_ of the Indus valley were very abundant. The new plants were all species of Kashmir or Iskardo, such as _Verbascum Thapsus_, _Lappa_, _Valeriana_, _Swertia_, and _Gentiana Moorcroftiana_. _Trifolium repens_ and _fragiferum_ grew in the pastures close to the river, and tropical species of _Setaria_ and _Amaranthus_ were common weeds in the corn-fields.

[Sidenote: SINGULAR SANDSTONE FORMATION. _September, 1848._]

In the immediate neighbourhood of Pashkyum the rocks consist of coarse-grained grey or white sandstones, often containing small water-worn pebbles, and alternating with dark crumbling pyritiferous shales. These rocks, which dip to the east or south-east, at an angle of not more than 15°, rise on the north side of the valley to the summit of a long sloping ridge, which appears to overhang the Indus. As these sandstones and shales contained, so far as I could observe, no fossils, their age is a matter of complete uncertainty. They were quite independent of the modern lacustrine formation, patches of which, perfectly horizontally stratified, and therefore unconformable to the other, were seen in several places resting on the sandstone. These sandstones perhaps reach as far as the Indus, but I was not able to determine how far they extended to the southward, in which direction high and rugged mountains, now covered with snow, skirted the valley at a distance of a few miles.

[Sidenote: KARGIL. _September, 1848._]

On the 23rd of September, I followed the Pashkyum river to its junction with that of Dras. Crossing, at starting, to the left bank of the river, the road lay for a mile through cultivated lands; it then ascended to a platform of alluvium, which blocked up the valley, while the river disappeared in a narrow ravine far to the right. Five miles from Pashkyum, I descended very abruptly from this elevated plain, to the village of Kargil, where the Pashkyum river is joined by a large stream from Suru, called by Moorcroft the Kartse; which I crossed by a good wooden bridge, close to a small fort, occupied by a Thannadar with a small party of soldiers. The cultivated lands of Kargil, which is elevated about 8300 feet, are extensive and well wooded; but immediately below, the valley becomes narrow and rocky, and continues so for more than a mile, till the stream joins the Dras river. Nearly due south of Kargil the stratified rocks of the mountains are replaced by igneous rocks, and the point of contact of the two is well marked on the precipitous face of a lofty peak. At first the igneous rock was dark and resembling greenstone, but it soon changed to granite, which, as I had observed in April, occurs everywhere in the valley of Dras, below Karbu.

I encamped on the right bank of the Dras river, about a mile above the village of Hardas. Henceforward my route was the same as I had travelled in April. On the 24th I travelled to Tashgong, and on the 25th I arrived at Dras. In most parts of the valley I found a great deal of alluvium, but I saw none of the fine clay which is characteristic of the purely lacustrine strata above the village of Bilergu, where I had observed it in April. Gravelly conglomerate was everywhere the prevailing form,--sometimes indurated, but generally soft and shingly. Most of these deposits were unstratified, but distinct stratification was far from uncommon. The alluvium often capped low hills in the open valley many hundred feet above the bed of the river, and it was observed at frequent intervals in every part of the valley, from the junction of the Pashkyum river to Dras itself.

[Sidenote: ALLUVIUM OF DRAS. _September, 1848._]

The great extent and remarkable forms of alluvium which I had seen in the district through which I had travelled, between Kalatze and Dras, induced me to note with care the position and composition of the alluvial beds of the Dras valley. The known low elevation of the Zoji pass, between Dras and Kashmir, which is only 11,300 feet above the sea, made the great extent and continuity of these deposits very remarkable, and with difficulty explicable, unless on the supposition of the existence of a series of lakes separated from one another by extensive accumulations of alluvium, now to a great extent removed by denudation. The lacustrine clays of lower Dras, about Ulding, appear continuous with those of the Indus valley about Tarkata, but the clays of Pashkyum, which are separated from them by a very thick mass of alluvium, which occupies that part of the Dras and Pashkyum rivers immediately above the junction of the two, may have been deposited in an isolated lake. Further east again, at Lamayuru, there are beds of pure clay as high as the summit of the Zoji pass, so that the alluvial beds of the upper part of the Phatu ridge must have separated the lake in which these were deposited from the more western waters, which (it may be conjectured) at the same time covered the whole of the valley of Molbil and Pashkyum.

The vegetation of Dras was still very Tibetan, but transitional forms were becoming frequent. The _Chenopodiaceæ_ (except _Eurotia_) had all disappeared, but _Artemisiæ_ and _Umbelliferæ_ were very abundant. The new forms were all Kashmirian, and indicated a considerable increase of humidity: a small white-flowered balsam was observed not far from Hardas, and _Prunella_, _Thymus Serpyllum_, an _Achillea_, _Senecio_, _Galium_, and _Silene inflata_ were all seen below the fort of Dras. At that place the harvest was but just over; indeed, a field or two of wheat were still uncut.

[Sidenote: MATEN. _September, 1848._]

On the 26th of September, I marched to Maten, along a road which, in April, had been entirely covered with deep snow. Part of the road was rocky, but in general the valley was open. During this day's journey, a very great change took place in the vegetation. Hitherto, Kashmirian plants had been the exception, the greater part of the species being Tibetan; to-day the reverse was the case, most of the plants seen being those common in the comparatively moist climate of Kunawar, or species new to me, but belonging to families or genera which inhabit a more humid climate than Tibet. Groves of dwarf willows lined the banks of the stream, and nearly sixty species of plants not observed in Tibet were collected during the day. _Vitis_, _Aconitum_, _Hypericum_, _Vernonia_, a prickly juniper, _Convallaria_, and _Tulipa_, may be selected as illustrative of the greatness of the change, which was particularly interesting from its suddenness. Numerous Tibetan forms no doubt still lingered, but principally such as extend into Kashmir. At Maten the barley was still uncut, notwithstanding that it is upwards of a thousand feet lower than Le, at which place harvest was nearly over at the time of my departure.

[Sidenote: ZOJI PASS. _September, 1848._]

There can be no doubt that the sudden alteration in the character of the vegetation is due to the great depression in the chain separating Tibet from Kashmir, at the Zoji pass, which is far below the usual level of the lowest parts of these mountains. The access of a great amount of humidity, which would have been condensed if the moisture-bringing winds had been obliged to pass over a lofty chain, makes the autumn partially rainy, and frequently cloudy, thereby diminishing the action of the sun's rays, and lowering the mean temperature of the summer.

On the 27th of September, I crossed the pass of Zoji La, which had now a very different aspect from that which it had presented in April. From Maten the road lay up a wide open valley with a scarcely perceptible ascent, generally along the edge of a small stream, but occasionally on the slope of the hill-sides. The valley was flat and often swampy; but the mountains on both sides, more particularly on the left, were high and abrupt, not unfrequently precipitous. On that side there were in most of the ravines large patches of snow, and in one there was a fine glacier, which stopped abruptly within a hundred yards of the main valley. Latterly a few patches of snow lay even in the open valley. The vegetation was almost entirely Kashmirian, not more than six or seven out of about 110 species being otherwise; the hill-sides were covered with brushwood, at first of willow and prickly juniper, but latterly principally of birch.

Five or six miles from Maten, the main branch of the stream was found to descend from a narrow ravine on the left, at the head of which there was perhaps a glacier. In the valley along which the road lay, there was scarcely any water in the bed of the stream, and about a mile further on, without any increase in the inclination, I came to a large patch of dirty snow, beyond which there was a very evident slope to the southward. The boiling-point of water here indicated an elevation of 11,300 feet. A few hundred yards further, I arrived at a large pond (it could hardly be called a lake), into which a very small rill of water was trickling from the north, while from the opposite end a stream ran towards the south. This little lake was not, as I had expected, on the crest of the pass, but undoubtedly on the Kashmirian side of it.

[Sidenote: BALTAL. _September, 1848._]

Beyond the lake, the descent became steep, and the valley contracted into a rocky ravine, full of snow, under which the little stream disappeared. The road was at first on the left side of the valley, but crossed on the snow at the commencement of the contracted part, and ascended rather abruptly a steep hill on the right through a very pretty grove of birch. The top of this steep ascent is usually considered by travellers as the pass, and is the place to which the name Zoji La properly belongs. The point of separation of the waters must of course, for geographical purposes, be considered as the actual pass, but this ridge, which, if not actually higher, is at all events on a level with it, and has in addition a steep ascent on both sides, has not unnaturally had that honour assigned to it. On reaching the shoulder of the ridge, the valley of Baltal came in sight, presenting, in the words of Moorcroft, "as if by magic, a striking contrast in its brown mountains and dark forests of tall pines to the bare rocks and few stunted willows to which we had so long been accustomed." The sight of a forest is certainly a great source of gratification to a traveller who has been long in Tibet; but the pleasing effect of the view from the Zoji pass is not owing merely to contrast; as the traveller looks down upon the bed of Sind river, more than 2000 feet below, and the forest in the valley is not too dense, but interspersed with open glades, while beyond rise high mountains tipped with snow. I do not think that I have anywhere in the Himalaya seen a more beautiful scene than that which then lay before me; but the effect was enhanced by the recollection of the appearance of the same spot in April, when the whole landscape was covered with snow, and I descended from the summit of the pass on a snow-bank which filled up the now inaccessible ravine, on account of which I was obliged to make a long detour. The descent was extremely abrupt, through a pretty wood, down to a log hut built for the accommodation of travellers a few hundred yards from the river, at an elevation of 9,200 feet.

The flora of the Sind valley at Baltal was very rich: the forest consisted chiefly of pine, poplar (_P. ciliata_), birch, and sycamore, intermixed with underwood of _Ribes_, _Berberis_, _Viburnum_, _Lonicera_, and _Salix_. The herbaceous vegetation had all that excessive luxuriance which characterizes the subalpine forests of the Himalaya at the end of the rainy season. Gigantic _Compositæ_, _Labiatæ_, _Ranunculaceæ_, and _Umbelliferæ_ were the prevailing forms. There were several large patches of snow in the bed of the lateral torrent which descended from Zoji La, as low down as the log hut; and it was not a little curious to observe, that in spots from which the snow had only recently melted, the willows were just beginning to expand their buds, and the cherry, rhubarb, _Thalictrum_, _Anemone_, _Fragaria_, and other plants of early spring, were in full flower.

[Sidenote: KASHMIR. _October, 1848._]

In descending the Sind valley towards Kashmir, my route was the same by which I had travelled in April. The mountains on the left were extremely precipitous and heavily snowed, and in a ravine a little below Sonamarg a glacier descended almost to 9000 feet. The lower part of the valley was one sheet of cultivation, chiefly of rice, which was almost ripe. In the neighbourhood of Kashmir, where I arrived on the 5th of October, the season of vegetation was almost at an end; species of _Nepeta_, _Eryngium_, _Daucus_, _Centaurea_, _Carpesium_, and several _Artemisiæ_ being the most remarkable of the herbaceous plants remaining. In the lake there were vast groves of _Nelumbium_ leaves, but the flowers and fruit were both past; _Salvinia_ was everywhere floating in great abundance; while the other aquatic plants were species of _Bidens_, _Stachys_, _Mentha_, _Scutellaria_, _Hippuris_, and _Typha_, all European or closely resembling European forms.

Besides rice, which constitutes the staple crop of the valley, the principal grains cultivated in autumn appeared to be different kinds of millet, and a good deal of maize; Indian species of _Phaseolus_ also were common, now nearly ripe. The wheat and barley, which are much earlier, were already above ground. I saw a few fields of _Sesamum_ (the _Til_ of India), and in drier spots a good deal of cotton, which was being picked by hand, but appeared a poor stunted crop, much neglected.

On the high platforms between Pampur and Avantipura the saffron was in flower, and its young leaves were just shooting up. This crop seems a very remunerative one to the Raja, who retains the monopoly in his own hands, compelling the cultivators to sell the produce to him at a fixed price. The bulbs are allowed to remain in the ground throughout the year, and continue in vigour for eight or ten years, after which the produce diminishes so much in quantity that the beds are broken up, and the bulbs separated and replanted. The flowers are picked towards the end of October, and carried into the town of Kashmir, where the stigmas are extracted.

Another very important product of Kashmir is hemp, which grows spontaneously along the banks of the river, forming dense thickets often twelve and fifteen feet in height, and almost impenetrable. It is only used in the manufacture of an intoxicating drink, and for smoking; and the plant is preserved entire, in store-houses, in the town of Kashmir, till required for consumption.

From Kashmir I proceeded towards the plains of the Punjab by the same route by which I had travelled in May. During my absence in Tibet, the second Sikh war had broken out, and as it was then at its height, it was not easy to reach the British territories. I was therefore detained a good while, first in Kashmir, and afterwards at Jamu, and did not reach Lahore till the 16th of December.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Two months later, Captain Strachey ascended the Nubra valley till stopped by this glacier, which appears to be on a still more gigantic scale than those of the Shayuk to the eastward.

[25] Excellent specimens of this singular alpine plant, each tuft of which must, I think, represent the growth of centuries, may be seen in the Museum of the Royal Gardens at Kew, collected by Dr. Hooker in Eastern Tibet.

[26] I have no conjecture to offer regarding the age or nature of this very remarkable rock.

[27] The itinerary of Mir Izzet Ullah shows that at the time of his journey from Le to Yarkand the direct road up the Shayuk was still open.