Western Himalaya and Tibet Part 28

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 dest.i.tute 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 pa.s.sed 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. Pa.s.sing a small patch of swampy, gra.s.sy 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 Sa.s.sar,--in fact, the Shayuk. None of them had followed its course, but they a.s.sured 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 Sa.s.sar, in order to reach the Karakoram pa.s.s, instead of pursuing the circuitous route by which I travelled; but that about ten or twelve years ago the glaciers above Sa.s.sar descended so low as entirely to prevent any one pa.s.sing 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. Pa.s.sing 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 dest.i.tute 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 Pa.s.s.

_August, 1848._]

On the 19th of August, leaving my tent standing, I started to visit the Karakoram pa.s.s, 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 acc.u.mulation 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s--a rounded ridge connecting two hills which rose somewhat abruptly to the height of perhaps 1000 feet above me. The height of the pa.s.s was 18,200 feet, the boiling-point of water being 1808, 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 pa.s.s; they were quite without snow, nor was there any on the pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s, but the loose s.h.i.+ngle 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 pa.s.s the rock _in situ_ was limestone, showing obscure traces of fossils, but too indistinct to be determined; the s.h.i.+ngle, 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 gra.s.ses, three _Saussureae_, and two _Cruciferae_; 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 b.u.t.terfly. Returning by the same road, I arrived at my tent a little after sunset, the distance from the top of the pa.s.s 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 Sa.s.sar 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s, 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 Sa.s.sar, 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 Sa.s.sAR.

_August, 1848._]

Before leaving Sa.s.sar, 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 ma.s.s; 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 Sa.s.sar to Nubra, but on my return to the former place after visiting the pa.s.s, 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 Sa.s.sar. 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 pa.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 compa.s.s. 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 coa.r.s.e 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 thres.h.i.+ng-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 a.s.ses, all muzzled, on small thres.h.i.+ng-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; _Chenopodiaceae_ 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 Pa.s.s.

_September, 1848._]

On the 20th of September I crossed the Phatu pa.s.s, 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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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 pa.s.s was gentle, up a gravelly valley, which was full of alluvium, almost to the very summit. The pa.s.s 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 _Umbelliferae_ were observed, none of which had occurred in the hills to the north of the Indus; the p.r.i.c.kly _Statice_ was also common, but the _Chenopodiaceae_ 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 coa.r.s.e conglomerate.

[Sidenote: NAMIKA Pa.s.s.

_September, 1848._]

From Karbu I marched on the 21st to Molbil, crossing the Namika pa.s.s.

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 pa.s.s 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 thres.h.i.+ng-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 _Artemisiae_ 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 _Verbasc.u.m 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 coa.r.s.e-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 s.h.i.+ngly. 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.