Chapter 6 No.6

Descend Hanle river-Unsettled weather-Encamp on banks of Indus-Upper course of Indus-Pugha ravine-Forest of Myricaria-trees-Borax plain-Hot springs-Borax lakes of Eastern Tibet-Sulphur mine-Pulokanka Pass-Salt lake-Lacustrine clays with shells-Ancient water-mark-Rupchu-Tunglung Pass-Fall of snow-Alluvial conglomerate-Giah-Narrow ravine-Miru-Upshi-Indus valley-Marsilang-Richly cultivated plain of Chashut-Bridge over Indus-Le-Buddhist edifices.

On the 17th of September we left Hanle, en route to Le. Our road lay down the left bank of the river by which the waters of the lake-plain are discharged into the Indus. The valley through which it flowed was open and level, and its slope imperceptible. On the left lay a low range of hills, an irregular mass increasing much in width, as well as in height, as we proceeded northwards, the Hanle extremity being the termination where it slopes into the plain. On the right, a very lofty range, some of the peaks of which were certainly not less than 21,000 feet in elevation, ran parallel to our course, separating the open valley of the Hanle river from the Indus.

HANLE RIVER.

September, 1847.

The width of the valley varied from one to three miles. The stream was very winding, crossing from side to side, and often pressing the road close to the spurs of the range on the left. The range on this side was principally clay-slate, with occasional outbreaks of trap, which had in many places converted the stratified rock into a hard red or green jasper. From the immediate proximity of the igneous rock the stratified masses were very much contorted, and no regular dip was observable.

Saline efflorescence occurred everywhere in great quantity in the vicinity of the stream; as a consequence, Chenopodiaceous plants were more than usually abundant, and I collected at least three species of that family which I had not previously observed. The banks of the stream were everywhere bordered by a belt of green herbage, more or less broad, in which the usual species of Ranunculus, Gentiana, Pedicularis, Juncus, Cyperace?, and grasses were common. Glaux maritima also occurred abundantly. Two other European plants were found in the swamps along the course of the river, which were very interesting as a proof of the extremely European nature of the flora: these were Hippuris vulgaris and Limosella lacustris. Towards the end of the day's journey, Caragana versicolor (Dama) became very common, covering a large extent of surface, and growing to a much greater size than I had ever before seen, with an upright stem nearly six feet in height. I could scarcely persuade myself that the species was the same as the little depressed shrubs which grew on the passes further south. Two species of Myricaria, both of which I had seen in Piti, also reappeared during the day, so that we were evidently approaching a lower level and more genial climate.

Banks of alluvial conglomerate occurred on the sides of the valley, in the spaces between the projecting spurs of the range on the left hand, on the latter part of the day. The beds were distinctly stratified and very sandy, more or less full of rounded stones, and often passing into pure sand, which was interstratified with the coarser beds. The day was very cloudy and threatening, and a few drops of rain fell for the first time since the 29th of August, the weather during the whole of that interval having been brilliant and quite dry. We encamped eleven miles from Hanle, on a gravelly plain close to the river.

Dining the night the weather did not improve, but continued very cloudy, and on the morning of the 18th the mountains on the right side of the valley were covered with snow, down to within 1500 feet of the plain. The wind blew strongly from the northward, and the day, which was still very cloudy, was bitterly cold, and, to our feelings, extremely uncomfortable. We continued to follow the course of the Hanle river, passing over long gravel flats, which alternated with turfy saline meadows. Several low spurs from the mountains on the left, which projected far into the plain, making the river bend much to the right, were crossed as we proceeded. About ten miles from our morning's camp, we left the course of the river, which turned to the right and entered a rocky mountain gorge, while our road kept its northerly direction. An open valley led us to the crest of a low ridge of trap and slate, from which a very long stony monotonous valley descended to an extensive plain covered with fine mud and saline exudation, on which the only vegetation was a few tufts of Su?da and coarse grass. Crossing this plain, on which the dry clay was in many places deeply cracked and fissured, as if it had till within a short time been under water, or at least swampy, we encamped, at an elevation of 13,800 feet, on the banks of the Indus, here a muddy torpid stream, without any apparent current, about four feet deep and twenty or twenty-five feet wide. There was, however, another channel, separated from that on which we were encamped by a small island.

RIVER INDUS.

September, 1847.

So sluggish was the stream at the point where we joined it, that we were for a long time uncertain in which direction the current was flowing; and though we were prepared to find the Indus at the end of our day's journey, the river on whose banks we were encamped was so much less than our anticipations, that we were very unwilling to be convinced that we had really arrived at the great river, to which we had so long looked forward as one of the most interesting objects of our journey. The island in the centre of the channel was a bank of very fine sand or mud, on which large flocks of wild-fowl were resting; it was very little elevated above the surface of the water, which must frequently, I should think, rise sufficiently to cover it. The bank on which we were encamped, though rather higher, was not more than four feet above the water; it was quite vertical, and composed of fine clay, without any intermixture of stones or gravel.

UPPER COURSE OF THE INDUS.

September, 1847.

The course of the river Indus, from its source to Le, has hitherto been less known than any other part in Tibet; but as Captain Strachey, a month or two after our visit, descended along it from the Chinese frontier, as far as Le, the unknown portion is now very much reduced. It rises in the mountains north of the lakes of Mansarawer and Rawan Rhad, and runs in general towards the north-east. Moorcroft has described its appearance at Garu or Gartop, where it is a very insignificant stream; but the intervening country is so little known, except by native report, that we can scarcely be said to have an exact knowledge of the upper part of its course. There is in some maps an eastern branch laid down, but of that we have no definite information. From the arid and snowless nature of the country through which it must flow, it is probably a very small stream, but its length may be considerable.

Immediately above the open plain in which we joined the Indus, it would appear to have a very rocky and rugged channel. Such, at least, was the description given to us by our guides of the lower course of the Hanle river, which we left only a few miles before it joined the Indus; and as the mountains to the south-west appeared to close in very abruptly within a very short distance of our encampment, we could not doubt that the open and level plain which we found in this portion of the river's course was of limited extent, and quite an exceptional feature in the character of the country through which the Indus flows. From the great elevation and abrupt slope of the range which runs parallel to the Hanle river on the east, there can be no doubt that the spurs which it sends down on its north-east slope, towards the Indus, must be bold and rocky; and though the hills on the left bank of the Hanle river are much less elevated, yet they rise as they advance to the eastward. The descent of this river too, though very gentle in the upper part of its course, while its valley is broad, is probably very abrupt in the last few miles, where its channel is rocky and its ravine narrow. The elevation of its junction with the Indus is, I believe, about 13,800 feet above the level of the sea.

INDUS VALLEY.

September, 1847.

On the 19th of September our road lay in a westerly direction down the Indus. The weather was still extremely unsettled, the sky being cloudy and a violent north or north-west wind continuing to blow in frequent gusts. No rain, however, fell. The plain gradually narrowed as we advanced, and the mountains on the left approached by degrees close to the river. Low grassy plains, covered with a saline incrustation, quite dry, and without any brushwood or tall herbaceous vegetation, skirted the river, the course of which we followed very closely. Indeed, notwithstanding the considerable diminution of altitude, the aspect of the valley of the Indus was more dreary and barren than we had for some days been accustomed to. The rocky spurs were quite bare; and even on the level tracts no vegetation was seen, excepting on the very lowest banks, which were moistened by the river. This utter sterility was no doubt due to the absence of lateral rivulets, the hills which rose on our left hand being stony and steep, and not rising to a sufficient elevation to be covered with perpetual snow, or to accumulate and retain snow-beds in their ravines till a late period of the year.

The rock on the left-hand mountains during the day was quite different from any that had hitherto occurred, being a conglomerate, with rounded stones of various sizes, many of them granite. The matrix was of a very dark colour, and generally extremely hard; more rarely it was a coarse sand, crumbling to pieces. This conglomerate was everywhere stratified, the beds dipping to the south-west, at an angle of about forty-five degrees. During the day the river varied much in width, being seldom less than twenty-five yards, and sometimes as much as eighty. The stream was generally very gentle, not exceeding two miles an hour, except in a few rapids, and the river was in most places fordable. We encamped on the left bank, in a place where it was shallow and wide.

On the 20th of September we continued at first to follow the left bank of the Indus, which gradually assumed a more northerly direction. The mountains on both sides approached much more closely to the river than they had done the day before, and those on the right continued extremely lofty. The river now flowed more rapidly, and was often wider and more shallow; one rapid was not less than 150 yards in width. Banks of alluvial clayey conglomerate were usually interposed between the mountains and the river, forming cliffs which attained not unfrequently an elevation of fifty feet. These were separated by projecting spurs, over which the road passed wherever they advanced so close to the centre of the valley as to prevent a passage along the level plain. Some small streamlets were crossed during the day, and in consequence the vegetation was at times more varied, and at the same time more luxuriant, than it had been the day before. A few bushes of Myricaria were seen on the bank of the river; and in the lateral ravines the ordinary shrubs and herbaceous vegetation were common. The only new plant was a species of Labiat?, a coarse-growing under-shrub, probably a species of Ballota.

PUGHA RAVINE.

September, 1847.

The hard conglomerate of the day before did not again occur, various forms of clay-slate being the prevailing rock. The steep slopes were, however, very frequently covered with a talus of angular fragments, which obscured the structure of the lower portions of the mountains, at the same time that it revealed the nature of the higher strata, which would otherwise have been inaccessible. Red and green jaspery rocks, very hard and brittle, were abundant, with various forms of greenstone, at times closely resembling syenite. These were evidently the same rocks as had been met with in the neighbourhood of Hanle, and along the river for some way below that town. Their recurrence here, therefore, tended to confirm what had for some time appeared to me to be the prevailing strike of these formations, namely, from S.S.E. to N.N.W.

After following the course of the Indus for about eight miles, we turned abruptly to the left, ascending a narrow gorge, in which a considerable stream flowed from the south-west. The slope was, from the first, considerable, and the course of the ravine very winding. Steep rocky cliffs rose precipitously on both sides, and generally approached so close to one another that their tops could not be seen. The channel of the stream was at first stony and quite bare, but after a mile bushes of the Myricaria became common, fringing the stream, but nowhere growing at any distance from it. These gradually increased in size and abundance, and at our camping place, three miles from the commencement of the ravine, they were generally small trees, many of them not less than fifteen feet in height, with stout erect trunks five or six inches in diameter.

The morning of the 21st of September was bright and clear, and intensely frosty, the unsettled weather which had continued since our leaving Hanle having quite disappeared. Our road still lay up the gorge, which had quite the same appearance as on the previous day. High precipices, or very steep banks, hemmed in the stream on both sides. Small trees of Myricaria still continued abundant in the immediate vicinity of the water; elsewhere, all was as desolate as ever. Some of these trees were not less than a foot in diameter; the trunk was generally very short, often branching within a foot of the base. At intervals there was a good deal of alluvium, partly in the shape of coarse conglomerate, partly a fine micaceous sand, filling up the recesses at the bends of the ravine. After three miles, the ravine suddenly expanded into a narrow plain, the surface of which was irregularly undulating, and completely encrusted with salt. As this plain was interesting in consequence of the production of borax, we encamped on the bank of the little stream about a mile from the end of the gorge, and remained stationary the next day in order to examine the nature of the locality in which the borax is found.

HOT SPRINGS.

September, 1847.

As the day's journey was a very short one, we arrived at the salt plain by eight o'clock A.M. The air was still quite frosty. While our tents were being pitched on a dry bank a little way above the stream, we proceeded to its bank, and were not a little surprised to find the water quite tepid, notwithstanding the extreme cold of the air. On procuring a thermometer, it was found to have a temperature of 69°. Advancing up the stream, we found that numerous hot springs rose on its banks, and sometimes under the water. The hottest of these had a temperature of 174°. From these springs gas was copiously evolved, smelling strongly of sulphur; and in their immediate neighbourhood the water of the little river had a faintly sulphurous taste, though elsewhere it was quite pure and good. The stream, which was perhaps twenty feet wide, was usually rather deep. Dense masses of aquatic weeds, chiefly species of Zannichellia and Potamogeton, grew in the water, and along the margins their dead stems, mixed with mud, formed immense banks, scarcely strong enough to bear the weight of a man, and yet seemingly quite solid. A small crustaceous animal was common among the weeds, but though I searched with care I could find no shells. The stream was full of fish, which swarmed among the weeds, and darted backwards and forwards in the tepid water in immense shoals. They were generally about six inches in length, and appeared to my inexperienced eye to belong to two or three species, all different from those which had been seen at Hanle. In the hottest water of the hot springs I collected three species of Conferva.

MYRICARIA TREES.

September, 1847.

The existence of the tree Myricaria in the gorges between Pugha and the Indus, which had appeared to us at the time very remarkable, was fully explained by the occurrence of the hot springs, and the consequent high temperature of the water of the stream, and was peculiarly interesting as an illustration of the influence of temperature upon vegetation. It may fairly be considered, I think, as a proof, that arboreous vegetation does not cease at great elevations in consequence of the rarefaction of the air, but only on account of the diminution of temperature which usually accompanies increased elevation. The trees of Myricaria, it must be observed, came abruptly to an end with the ravine, none occurring on the open plain. We cannot suppose that the trifling increased elevation caused their disappearance; it seems probable that the narrow walls of the gorge, by concentrating the heat, prevented its escape, and that, therefore, the temperature was more elevated than in the open plain, where the action of winds and free radiation combined to lower it. The occurrence of fish in the water of Pugha, at an elevation of nearly 15,500 feet above the level of the sea, is also very remarkable, and still more strikingly demonstrative of the same fact, inasmuch as it would certainly not have been very surprising that air at that elevation should, from its rarity, be insufficient for the support of life in animals breathing by gills.

At the gorge, where the narrow ravine expands into the lake plain of Pugha, the rock is clay-slate, but the hills which skirt the open plain are micaceous schist, varying much in appearance, often with large crystals of garnet, and crumbling rapidly to decay. On the surface of the plain lay many scattered boulders of a peculiar kind of granite, evidently transported from a considerable distance along the stream; and in all the central parts of the plain, a very remarkable conglomerate in horizontal strata, consisting of angular fragments of the surrounding rocks, cemented together by calcareous matter, was observed.

BORAX PLAIN.

September, 1847.

The whole of the plain is covered, to the depth of several feet at least, with white salt, principally borax, which is obtained in a tolerably pure state by digging, the superficial layer, which contains a little mixture of other saline matters, being rejected. There is at present little export of borax from Pugha, the demand for the salt in Upper India being very limited, and the export to Europe almost at an end.

BORAX LAKES OF TIBET.

September, 1847.

It has long been known that borax is produced naturally in different parts of Tibet, and the salt imported thence into India was at one time the principal source of supply of the European market. I am not aware that any of the places in which the borax is met with had previously been visited by any European traveller, but the nature of the localities in which it occurs has been the subject of frequent inquiry, and several more or less detailed accounts have been made public. These differ considerably from one another, and no description that I have met with accords with that of the Pugha valley. Mr. Saunders[13] describes (from hearsay) the borax lake north of Jigatzi as twenty miles in circumference, and says that the borax is dug from its margins, the deeper and more central parts producing common salt. From the account of Mr. Blane[14], who describes, from the information of the natives, the borax district north of Lucknow, and, therefore, in the more western part of the course of the Sanpu, it would appear that the lake there contains boracic acid, and that the borax is artificially prepared by saturating the sesquicarbonate of soda, which is so universally produced on the surface of Tibet, with the acid. At least, the statement that the production of borax is dependent on the amount of soda, leads to this conclusion. The whole description, however, (as is, indeed, to be expected in a native account of a chemical process,) is very obscure, and not to be depended upon. Mr. Saunders does not notice any hot springs in the neighbourhood of the borax; but in the more western district described by Mr. Blane, hot springs seem to accompany the borax lake as at Pugha.

It is not impossible that the three districts in which the occurrence of borax has been noticed, which are only a very small portion of those which exist, may represent three stages of one and the same phenomenon. The boracic acid lake may, by the gradual influx of soda, be gradually converted into borax, which, from its great insolubility, will be deposited as it is formed. On the drainage or drying-up of such a lake, a borax plain, similar to that of Pugha, would be left behind[15].

From Pugha, two roads towards Le were open to us. We might either return to the Indus, and follow the valley of that river throughout, or proceed by a more direct route across the mountains to join the road from Lake Chumoreri to Le, by which Mr. Trebeck had travelled on his way to Piti. As we knew that the Indus route would be surveyed by Captain Strachey, who was desirous of following the course of the river as far as practicable, we preferred the more mountainous road, and, therefore, on leaving our encampment at Pugha, on the morning of the 23rd of September, we continued to ascend the valley of the little stream, on the banks of which we had been encamped. For the first two miles the plain was nearly level, and similar in character to what has just been described, hot springs being observed at intervals.

SULPHUR MINE.

September, 1847.

Two miles from our encampment, we stopped and examined the spot whence sulphur is obtained, at the base of the mountain slope on the north side of the valley. Ascending a few feet over a loose talus of shingle, which skirted the bottom of the hill, we found two narrow caverns in the slaty rock, apparently natural, or only a little widened by art, roughly circular, and less than three feet in diameter at the mouth. One of these caverns continued a long way inwards, nearly horizontally, but it contracted considerably in diameter, and was so dark that we could not penetrate far. The rock was principally gypsum, interstratified with very friable mica-slate. Sometimes the gypsum was amorphous and powdery, at other times in needles two or three inches long, perpendicular to the strata of slate. The sulphur was in small quantities, scattered among the gypsum, and was more abundant in the lower beds. It was frequently in very perfect crystals, not, however, of any great size.

The air which issued from these funnel-shaped apertures was very sensibly warm, and had a strongly sulphurous odour. Unfortunately, we had not anticipated the necessity for observing the temperature, which was not by any means oppressive, and was only remarkable in contrast with the extreme cold of the external air.

In the neighbourhood of the sulphur-pits, the hot springs along the course of the stream were very numerous, evolving much gas. A little higher they ceased altogether, and the upper part of the plain was without any springs, as was evident from the quantity of ice by which it was covered. For more than a mile it was a dead level, and very swampy; but afterwards the valley became gently sloping and gravelly, the little stream being often hidden under the pebbles. Large boulders of the same granite which we had observed the day before, were scattered over the surface. The vegetation in this valley was extremely scanty, a few scattered tufts of Dama, and some shrubby Artemisi?, were occasionally seen, but the herbaceous vegetation had been almost entirely destroyed by the intense morning frosts, which had for some time been of daily occurrence. On the latter part of the day's journey the rock on the mountain-side changed from mica-slate to gneiss, of which very lofty scarped cliffs rose abruptly on the right hand. We encamped on a level spot, after ten miles of almost imperceptible ascent.

Next morning we continued to ascend the valley, which was now very rugged, from masses of boulders, which were heaped one on another to a very great thickness. The stream had cut for itself a narrow channel, nearly a hundred feet in depth, the walls of which were entirely composed of huge incoherent masses of rock, all more or less angular. A walk of three miles brought us to the crest of the pass, which was nearly level and grassy for about a mile; its elevation was about 16,500 feet. The pass (Pulokanka La) is a very deep depression in the axis of the chain, which runs parallel to the left bank of the Indus, separating the waters tributary to that river from those which join the Zanskar river, some of the feeders of the latter springing from the valleys on the western slopes of these mountains. The hills right and left of the pass rise very boldly into rugged masses, contrasting strongly with the level plain which constitutes the pass, in which the watershed is scarcely perceptible.

SALT LAKE.

September, 1847.

From the pass the descent was considerably more abrupt than the ascent had been. The valley to the right was bare and stony, watered by a small streamlet, which had, as on the eastern face of the pass, cut a deep channel for itself among boulders. On descending, we turned gradually to the right, and a lake by degrees came in view, towards the southern extremity of which the road advanced over undulating hills of fine clay, full of fresh-water shells, almost entirely of one species of Lymn?a, of which the specimens were extremely numerous. This lake is the Thogji Chumo of Mr. Trebeck, who travelled along it on his journey from Le to Piti.

FOSSILIFEROUS CLAYS.

September, 1847.

I was much surprised, and not a little pleased, to find that the clay-beds contained fossils; as, except on one occasion in Piti, where I found one or two specimens of a small Planorbis, I had in vain sought in the clayey beds for any trace of organized beings. Here, however, shells were in prodigious abundance, and as the species was a large one, they were very conspicuous. The clay formation was horizontally stratified, and quite impalpable. The uppermost beds were at least a hundred feet above the level of the lake; and as the valley by which we descended was in its lower part almost horizontal, the lacustrine beds extended to a considerable distance from the lake, forming a slightly undulating surface, over which the road ran.

After reaching the banks of the lake, the road kept its eastern shore throughout its whole length, which was about three miles, and we encamped close to its north end, on the edge of a level salt plain. Our elevation was about 15,500 feet. The margins of the lake, which was intensely saline, were generally very shallow, and its banks often swampy, and covered with saline plants, especially Chenopodiace?; a species of Su?da, with cylindrical fleshy leaves, was especially abundant, growing in the soft mud close to the banks of the lake. A Blysmus, several grasses, and Ranunculus Cymbalaria were also common along the banks of the lake. No shells could be seen in the water. The surrounding hills were not very lofty, but often rose abruptly several hundred feet, and were in general rugged and rocky. At the height of perhaps 150 feet above the lake, a weathered mark could be traced on the face of the mountains, wherever they were rocky, everywhere quite horizontal. This was most conspicuous from a distance, and became indistinct on a near approach. It appeared to indicate, as I shall hereafter show, the level of the surface of the lake at some former period.

On the morning of the 25th of September, our day's journey commenced by rounding the north end of the lake, keeping at some distance from its margin to avoid swamp. For about two miles from the northern end, the ground continued almost level, and contained great masses of the lacustrine clay quite horizontally stratified, and very little higher than the surface of the water, but here quite without shells. A wide valley, rising gently towards the north, lay beyond this level plain; but our road, passing across the end of the lake, ascended another valley, which ran in a north-west direction from its north-west corner. The slope of this valley was very gentle. It was bounded by low undulating or rocky hills, on which, where the surface was suitable, the same remarkable water-mark could be traced continuously, and still, to all appearance, quite horizontal. The centre of the valley was occupied by clay, at first non-fossiliferous, but a little further on containing a great abundance of shells, the same as in the bed seen the day before. A few specimens of a very small bivalve, seemingly a species of Cyclas, were also met with; but they were so very rare, that they bore an infinitesimally small proportion to the Lymn?a.

ANCIENT WATER-MARK.

September, 1847.

FORMER OUTLET OF LAKE.

September, 1847.

For several miles the ancient water-mark could be traced along the sides of the hills, appearing to descend gradually, as the valley slightly rose in elevation. Beds of clay continued to occupy the middle of the valley nearly as long as the water-mark remained visible. At last it disappeared where a depression on the left, leading to the valley of Rukchin, seemed to indicate the former drainage of the lake, at a time when its waters occupied a much higher level, and contained in a living state the large mollusca of which the shelly coverings still remain in such vast abundance in the clay. As it was at the very edge of the lacustrine clay formation that the shells were so abundant, while the masses of clay in the vicinity of our encampment of the 25th, at the north-east extremity of the lake, were without any, it would appear that the species was quite littoral, while in the more central parts fine mud was deposited, without shells. The outlet was indicated to me by Major Cunningham, who in a previous journey had travelled along a part of the Rukchin valley in descending from the Lachalang pass towards the salt lake. As it may fairly be inferred that the lake was quite fresh at the time when it was inhabited by Lymn?? and Cyclades, it is satisfactory to know that so very small an increase of the height of the surface of the water, as about 150 feet, would be sufficient to admit of its discharging its waters along the course of an open valley into one of the tributaries of the Zanskar river.

Our road, after passing the ravine on the left, along which I suppose the discharge of the lake at its original level to have been effected, turned still more towards the north, and ascending an open valley to the right, crossed a low col, or pass, and descended into a small basin surrounded by hills, which was evidently at some former period the bed of a small lake, for it was filled with pure fine clay, in which, however, I could not observe any shells. From this plain we passed into another open valley, up which we ascended in a northerly direction for five or six miles, encamping where the mountains on both sides began to close in a circle. Throughout the day we had been gradually but very gently ascending, and the height of our encampment was probably about 16,500 feet. We were about two miles from the Tunglung pass, a depression in the range parallel to the Indus, the same ridge which we had crossed before descending to the salt lake. The axis of the range had been very near us on the right hand since we had crossed it on the 24th, and had sent down a succession of spurs, separated by wide valleys, along which we had been travelling. These separating ridges appeared usually to rise to an elevation of from one to two thousand feet above the nearly level valleys which lay at their bases, and were, though often rocky, less remarkably so than in many previous parts of our journey.

ASCENT TOWARDS TUNGLUNG PASS.

September, 1847.

The elevated country surrounding the sources of the Parang and Hanle rivers, and those of the more eastern branches of the Zanskar, as well as that encircling Lake Chumoreri, constitutes as near an approach to what Humboldt has denominated a knot (n?ud) of mountains, as any part of the Himalaya which I have visited; not that I conceive there is any reason to suppose that we have in this part of the chain an intersection of two mountain masses of different ages, to which cause the distinguished geographer is disposed to assign those aggregations of mountains which he has so designated. There is, however, as indicated by the origin of so many considerable streams in a confined area, an extensive tract of highly elevated land, in which the valleys have a very gentle slope, while the surrounding mountains are not much elevated above them. The whole tract is nevertheless eminently mountainous, if contrasted, not with the still more rugged districts by which it is on every side surrounded, but with the hilly districts of less alpine countries.

In the elevated district which we had been traversing since crossing the Parang pass, there is little or no cultivation, a field or two at Hanle and at the monastery on the banks of Lake Chumoreri (as I am informed by Major Cunningham) being the only exceptions. The district, however, is much frequented by a nomade population of shepherds, who, living in tents, move about with their flocks as the abundance of food or their own caprice may lead them. Clusters of black tents were now and then seen by us at intervals, especially in Rupchu, by which name the districts round the salt lake are known to the wandering inhabitants.

During the whole of the 25th of September, a furious north wind had continued to blow, accompanied by a cloudy sky, and all the indications of extremely unsettled weather, such as had been met with in the neighbourhood of Hanle only a week before. It was evident that, as winter approached, these periods of disturbance recurred more and more frequently. This time the fury of the blast increased as the day advanced, and after dark the cold in our tents was very severe. About 10 P.M. it began to snow slightly, and at daybreak on the 26th the ground was covered with snow to a depth of between two and three inches. As we had a prospect of arriving in milder regions by diminishing our elevation during the day, we hastened our departure as much as possible. A mile and a half of level ground brought us directly under the pass, the ascent to which was at last very steep. The road was very stony and rugged, but everything being covered with snow a good deal deeper than on the open plain on which we had encamped, we did not linger at the summit. The wind still blew strongly from the north, driving in our faces the still falling snow, and opposing our progress towards the crest, which was very rocky, being composed of a mass of hard stratified quartz. The elevation of the summit was about 17,500 feet.

TUNGLUNG PASS.

September, 1847.

The descent from the pass was very rapid. After a few paces, we were in a narrow and steep ravine, in which we continued to descend very abruptly, without obtaining any view of the surrounding country. Three miles from the summit, at perhaps 2000 feet lower level, snow ceased to lie on the ground, but it continued to fall lightly till the afternoon. Large rounded tufts of an Alsinaceous plant were common on the upper part of the descent, conspicuous under the snow. Lower down, the remains of species of Corydalis and Saussurea were discoverable in crevices of the rocks, the only remains of the alpine vegetation. The rock on both sides was clay-slate.

Continuing to descend rapidly, the ravine widened a little, and became filled with a most extensive development of alluvial conglomerate, forming thick masses, worn into pinnacles and fantastic shapes, like the similar deposits above Sungnam in Kunawar. This was particularly conspicuous where a lateral valley joined that along which we descended, a flat-topped promontory of alluvium there projecting far beyond the primitive rocks.

GIAH.

September, 1847.

After a descent of about 4000 feet of perpendicular height, we arrived at Giah, elevated 13,400 feet above the sea, not a little glad to be among houses, in a more temperate region than it had been for some time our lot to travel in. We took up our quarters in the upper room of a two-storied house, which had been prepared for our reception, and willingly agreed to halt a day in order to give time for arrangements, for a change of porters, and a rest to our servants and guides. Giah will be recollected, by those acquainted with Moorcroft's travels, as the place where he entered the Tibetan country, and where he was for some time kept in considerable uncertainty as to the nature of the reception he would meet with. Since that time the supremacy of the Sikhs has entirely changed the state of the country; and though the king (Gylpo) of Giah still exists, he does not even exercise a nominal sovereignty, but lives a pensioner on the Sikh government, without power and with a very limited income.

The influence of the Sikhs has, however, produced little change in the character of the people, as their occupation of the country, except in Le itself, and at one or two military posts, is entirely nominal, and only maintained by the moral influence of their known superiority in resources and military skill. The gumpa, or monastery, as in Moorcroft's time, crowns a rocky hill on the right bank of the Giah stream, while the town, or more properly village, on the left bank, is built on the steep alluvial banks high above the stream. There was a considerable extent of cultivation round the village, barley and peas being the chief crops; both had been cut, but were still lying in small heaps in the fields. Notwithstanding the great elevation, a number of poplar-trees, of the large cordate-leaved species (which seems identical with P. balsamifera), occur in the village, several of which attain a considerable size.

GIAH RAVINE.

September, 1847.

On the morning of the 28th of September we resumed our journey towards Le. By crossing the Tunglung pass, we had again gained the eastern slope of the ridge dividing the waters of the Zanskar from those of the Indus. The Giah stream flows towards the latter river with a north-easterly course, and two marches of little more than seven miles each, brought us to the banks of the Indus at a village called Upshi. For the first mile after leaving Giah, the valley was somewhat open, with steep banks of alluvial conglomerate; it then contracted rather suddenly into a narrow ravine, with steep rocky walls, composed of highly inclined strata of conglomerate and sandstone. Owing to the diminished elevation, the vegetation was considerably more recognizable than it had been for the last week, and several shrubby plants were seen which had long been absent. Ephedra was common in the crevices of the rocks, and the Tibetan rose and a small shrubby Lonicera grew on the gravelly banks of the little stream.

REMARKABLE GORGE.

September, 1847.

At Miru, a considerable village where we encamped, the valley expanded into a little plain, filled as usual with alluvium, and covered with cultivation. A few poplar-trees occurred in the village. The ravine contracted immediately below this place, and was, if possible, more narrow and rocky than the day before, as the little stream had to be crossed not less than four or five times in as many miles, on small wooden bridges of rough planks. A very beautiful Labiate shrub, a species of Perowskia, with bright blue flowers, which I afterwards found very abundant in the Indus valley from 12,000 to 8000 feet, was here met with for the first time. Close to its junction with the Indus, the ravine expanded into an open plain, well covered with houses and enclosures, with scattered poplar and willow trees, as well as a few apricots, and traversed by canals of irrigation conducted from the little Giah rivulet. The Indus is here not more than forty feet wide, flowing swiftly over large boulders, and quite unfordable.

Throughout the whole course of this very remarkable gorge by which we descended from Giah, the rock continued to be conglomerate, alternating with strata of sandstone and of a very friable slate. The conglomerate was extremely hard, and generally of a dark brown colour. The matrix, which had often a semi-vitrified appearance, was not less hard than the enclosed stones, which were all rounded and very various in size and composition, jasper rock, granite, and quartz being all seen. The sandstone which accompanied the conglomerate varied much in colour, various shades of red, brown, and green being predominant. It was also extremely hard. These strata, which were highly inclined, often nearly vertical, were in general well marked, in consequence of the beds of hard sandstone and conglomerate being thrown out in relief by the more rapid decay of the soft slates with which they alternated. The dip was everywhere very variable, and several very distinct sections were displayed, where it was evident that the strata were curved and sinuated. The curves observed were convex below; the strike of the strata was nearly perpendicular to the general direction of the ravine, or from north-west to south-east.

INDUS VALLEY.

September, 1847.

From Upshi, our course lay down the Indus valley in a direction west of north. The width of the Indus, which was a rapid stream, varied from thirty or forty to a hundred feet. Platforms of alluvium, almost level-topped, and often attaining a thickness of a hundred feet, were interposed between the river and the mountains, which, still composed of highly inclined strata of conglomerate and its associated rocks, advanced in a succession of spurs towards the centre of the valley. These platforms were quite bare of vegetation, a few tufts of a prickly Echinops being the only plant worthy of note which I observed. No villages were passed till we reached Marsilang, at which we encamped after a journey of about ten miles. Here there was very extensive cultivation on the surface of the platform, on both sides of a deep ravine, cut in the alluvium by a considerable stream, which descended from the west. The plantations of willow and poplar were very luxuriant. The willows were planted in rows, and were frequently pollarded, their twigs being in great demand for baskets and other useful purposes in so treeless a country. When allowed to grow their full size, they spread much, and attain a length of upwards of thirty feet. The cultivated willows of Tibet are mostly European forms; Salix fragilis and S. alba are the most common. The poplars are of two sorts: one a spreading tree with large cordate leaves, which was first seen in Upper Kunawar, and is common in all the Tibetan villages, up to the highest limit of tree cultivation; it is quite identical with Populus balsamifera, which I cannot distinguish in the herbarium from P. laurifolia, of Ledebour. The other, which I had not before seen in Tibet, was a tall, erect, and slender tree, with much darker foliage and smaller leaves; it seems, so far as my specimens enable me to decide, to be the common black poplar (P. nigra) of Europe.

MARSILANG.

September, 1847.

At Marsilang the Indus is crossed by a good wooden bridge, thirty-four paces in length, which enables its inhabitants to communicate with the large villages and extensive cultivated tracts on the east bank of the river. As soon as we left the cultivated lands of Marsilang, on the morning of the 1st of October, we found ourselves again on a platform of alluvium; but after a few miles we reached another village, with extensive cultivation, and on the latter part of the day's journey passed through a succession of villages separated by gradually shorter intervals of unprofitable and barren land. These cultivated tracts were everywhere well irrigated; indeed, every spot, where irrigation was easy of execution, seemed to be under cultivation. Each village had its plantation of poplars and willows, not, however, so plentiful as at Marsilang. The grain had everywhere been cut and housed, the operations of harvest being seemingly quite at an end. The whole of this richly-cultivated district is called Chashut.

Our journey of the 2nd of October was for about six miles through an uninterrupted tract of cultivation, very little elevated above the level of the river, the alluvial platforms being here of inconsiderable thickness. The direction of the valley was also much more westerly, and the mountains on both sides had receded considerably from the river, leaving an open plain of five or six miles in width. Numerous irrigation channels intersected the fields, which gradually, as we proceeded, united one to another, till at last they all combined into one large and deep canal, by which the superfluous waters were conveyed to the Indus. Crossing this canal, we reached the river, which we crossed by a bridge twenty-five paces in length. A few houses, and a small patch of cultivation, lay on the right bank of the river, immediately beyond the bridge, but no extent of fertile country; low spurs of rocky hills descending from the north, close down upon the Indus. After crossing the bridge we turned up a wide and gravelly valley between two of these ridges, the course of which we followed, ascending very gradually among large boulders, strewed over the surface, for about three miles. We then turned abruptly to the left, through a narrow ravine in the low granitic hills by which the valley was on that side bounded. Emerging from this, we entered a quite similar and parallel valley, and obtained our first view of the town of Le, covering the top and slopes of a steep hill by which the valley was apparently terminated, about two miles beyond the point at which we entered it.

LE.

September, 1847.

Le, the capital of the province of Ladak, and the most important place, and only town, of Western Tibet, is situated about three miles from the Indus, in the upper part of an open valley, which rises gradually as it recedes from the river, so that the town is rather more than 1200 feet above its level, or about 11,800 feet above the sea. The town occupies the slope, and surrounds the base of a low spur, on the left or east side of the valley, while the centre and right side are occupied by extensive tracts of cultivation, the fields rising in terraces one above another, and watered by little rills drawn from a stream which descends in the centre of the valley. The aspect of the town, which is very peculiar, is faithfully represented in the frontispiece to the second volume of Moorcroft's Travels, from a sketch by Mr. Trebeck.

In the neighbourhood of the town there are several small enclosures, planted with poplar and willow trees, in one of which we pitched our tents. These plantations were all young, a very fine garden of old trees having been, it was said, destroyed at the time of the Sikh invasion. The governor of Ladak, a deputy of Maharaja Gulab Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, to whom the rule of Ladak has devolved as a dependency of the latter country, resides in the town; but the detachment of troops, amounting to about 150 men, who form the military garrison of the place, occupy a small square fort on the west side of the valley, about a mile from the town of Le.

The peculiarities of the Buddhist religion, as practised in Tibet, which are everywhere conspicuous in all parts of Ladak, are especially remarkable in the capital. The principal monasteries in the neighbourhood of Le are at some distance from the town in the vicinity of villages both up and down the Indus; but religious edifices, of the many kinds which are everywhere so common in Tibet, are seen all round Le in great numbers. Along the road by which we approached the town, there is a very long building, of the kind called Mané, extending for more than half a mile. It consists of two parallel walls, twelve or fifteen feet apart, and nearly six feet high, the intervals between which are filled up with stones and rubbish, and the whole covered with a sloping roof, which rises at a gentle angle to the central ridge, midway between the two walls. On the roof are laid large slabs of slate, every one of which is covered with Tibetan letters, or more rarely with a rude drawing of a temple. The words on these stones are (I believe, invariably) a repetition of the mystical Buddhist prayer, from one of the words of which these curious, and apparently useless, erections take their name. The Mane seems one of the most indispensable accompaniments of a Tibetan village, and they may occasionally be seen even in desert tracts; so that the amount of labour which has been expended in their construction must have been very great, some of the largest containing many millions of repetitions of the words Om Mane Padme Hom. In the smaller villages they are often very inferior in size, sometimes not more than twenty or thirty feet in length, and three feet high. Every traveller has constant occasion to notice that in passing these walls the Tibetans always leave them on the right hand, considering it both wrong and unlucky to do otherwise; those proceeding in contrary directions therefore take opposite sides.

RELIGIOUS EDIFICES OF TIBET.

September, 1847.

Equally conspicuous in the environs of Le are the urn-like buildings, called Chokten or Chosten, which are, I believe, erected over the ashes of Lamas, or priests, and are, therefore, in a country where a third or fourth part of the male population adopt a monastic life, particularly abundant. Long rows of these, consisting of twenty or more urns of various sizes, may often be seen in conspicuous places above the villages, forming, from the brilliant whitewash with which they are covered when new, very prominent objects. Many of those near Le are of large size, and ornamented with rude paintings of dragons and other mythological animals of uncouth form.

The religion of Tibet, from the remarkable nature of its institutions and ceremonies, has of late years attracted much attention; but as, from the hurried nature of my journey, I had no opportunity of acquiring any information regarding it which has not already been made public, it is not necessary for me to dwell upon it at any length. Throughout the whole of Western Tibet, the monasteries are very poor, in comparison with those in the neighbourhood of Lassa, of which we read such gorgeous descriptions; all their wealth in silver and gold having been plundered by the Sikhs, during their short possession of the country as far east as Garu and Taklakhar. Still the number of Lamas does not seem to have much diminished, though they are more dependent upon the cultivation of the soil than in Eastern Tibet, where some of the monasteries are said to contain thousands of priests.

LE.

September, 1847.

The town of Le is said to contain about 3000 inhabitants. Many of the houses are very high, the former residence of the king containing seven stories. They are usually built of unburnt brick, formed from the fine lacustrine clay of the neighbourhood. The Sikh Thannadar has lately built for himself a house of stone, but he found it necessary to bring lime from Nubra, a distance of nearly forty miles, none being procurable so near in the valley of the Indus. The timber used in the construction of the houses is all poplar or willow, both of which are found to last a very long time in the arid climate of Tibet. The beams are laid perhaps two feet apart, and covered sometimes with small planking, but more generally with brushwood, over which is laid a thick coating of clay, so as to form a flat roof, to which there is usually access by a small stair or ladder.

The mountain ranges which bound the valley in which the town of Le is situated, though not lofty, are very generally rocky and inaccessible. They consist partly of distinctly stratified gneiss, but principally of a fine white granite, which decays with great rapidity, and contains many irregular nodules of an iron grey colour, much finer in the grain than the rest. The width of the fertile plain of Chashut, over which I made the last two marches down the Indus, had prevented me from ascertaining the nature of the rocks on the mountains to the left, so that I cannot fix the exact point where the granitic eruption comes in contact with the slates and conglomerates of the Giah ravine.