Chapter 7 No.7

Departure from Le-Sabu Valley-Pass between Le and Nubra-Snow-Encamp at 15,500 feet-Digar-Valley of Shayuk-Alluvium-Populus Euphratica-Tsatti-Nubra river-District of Nubra-Villages-Irrigation-Saline soil-Isolated rocks-Chirasa-Panamik-Lower Nubra-Platforms of Alluvium-Traces of a great flood-Unmaru-Kuru-Great contraction of valley-Mountain pass of Waris-Boghdan ravine-Chorbat-Mahommedan population-Villages-Outburst of granite-Siksa-Khapalu-Open plain of Khapalu-Junction of Shayuk and Indus-Nar-Iskardo plain-Description of Iskardo-Aqueduct-Fort-Lacustrine clay formation-Vegetation.

While we were at Le there was a good deal of unsettled weather, and two very slight falls of snow. On the 9th of October we had an opportunity of observing an eclipse of the sun, which was welcomed by the inhabitants of the town with a most discordant beating of drums, intended to frighten away the demons who had taken possession of the sun. After a week's halt, Major Cunningham and myself started in different directions; Major Cunningham following the course of the Indus, and proceeding by Dras to Kashmir, while I crossed the range of mountains to the north into the valley of the Shayuk, and descended along that river to its junction with the Indus. The mountain range which separates these two rivers barely rises into the region of perpetual snow, a very few peaks only retaining any snow throughout the year. It is therefore crossed by passes at the head of each valley; but the pass nearest to Le having a small but very steep glacier on its northern face, is difficult and dangerous in autumn, after the snow has entirely melted from the surface of the ice. I was, therefore, recommended to cross into Nubra, by a pass a few miles further east, at the head of the valley of Sabu, which is separated from that in which the town of Le lies, by a steep ridge of granite hills.

SABU VALLEY.

October, 1847.

I left Le on the morning of the 11th of October. The road to the Sabu valley enters the granite range close to the town, ascending a narrow stony valley in an easterly direction, and crossing by a short steep ascent a depression in the ridge, to descend into a narrow ravine which has a south-east course into the Sabu valley, up which the road led. The hills were very stony and bare, or covered with the large Echinops of the Indus valley, of which the heads of fruit were falling to pieces. I encamped for the night in the valley of Sabu, which is very like that of Le, with pretty extensive cultivation, but few trees.

LAZGUNG PASS.

October, 1847.

Next day I crossed the pass. The ascent was very long and fatiguing, and, from the lateness of the season, very uninteresting. A cold bleak wind blew from the north in strong gusts, and the sky was overcast with light clouds. The valley contracted into a rocky ravine before the road left it to ascend rapidly the steep mountain-sides, which were covered with masses of boulders, heaped together in great confusion. The upper part of the ascent, which was very steep, was covered with snow, which lay on the loose stones of the crest to the depth of about a foot. It was late in the evening before I reached the top of the pass, the distance being much greater than I had been led to anticipate. The elevation of the summit, by the observations of Captain Strachey, is about 18,300 feet.

On the north face of the pass snow lay thickly for two miles or rather more, and more scantily for a mile further. As evening had begun to close before I reached the summit, I hurried my descent as much as possible. Fortunately, a great part of my baggage porters were in advance, but it had been for some time quite dark before I reached a spot sufficiently free of snow to be suitable for an encampment. The night was intensely cold, the sky being clear; and next morning, at half-past six o'clock, the thermometer stood at 15°. At the same time I found that water boiled at 184°, indicating an elevation of upwards of 15,500 feet.

In the morning I made a short march to the village of Digar, which I ought to have reached the day before, had not the darkness prevented me. The distance was not more than four miles, and the descent about 2500 feet, Digar being rather more than 13,000 feet above the level of the sea. The general direction of the valley in which I was encamped was north-east, and it was surrounded on all sides by extremely rugged mountains, now much covered with snow, down to about 14,000 feet. Throughout the descent, vast piles of boulders, heaped one on another, and forming steep banks, evidently moraines, occupied the flanks of the valley. The village of Digar, though small, and possessing only two small trees, had a considerable extent of cultivation, and seemed prosperous. It was situated on the left side of the valley, or rather on the slope of the mountains on that side opposite a lateral ravine, from which a stream of boulders had at one time descended. The centre of the valley was much lower, being excavated out of the alluvium which had once filled the whole.

VALLEY OF SHAYUK.

October, 1847.

On the morning of the 14th of October, I descended to the valley of the Shayuk, making a march of fifteen miles to the village of Tsatti, on the right bank of that river. The road skirted the steep stony hills on the left side of the valley, parallel to the Digar stream, for about two miles, descending rapidly, but still high above the bottom of the dell. The Digar ravine, before reaching the Shayuk, joined a wider one which descends from the south-east, and the united valley has a nearly due north direction. As the road turned by degrees to the left, round a spur of the mountains, the Shayuk valley came in sight, 1500 feet below. It was of considerable width, and very stony, barren, and desolate. Mountains of black slate, very lofty and rugged, in many places too steep for snow to lie, were seen to the north-east, from among which the river appeared to issue into the more open tract immediately below.

The road did not descend at once to the level of the river, but, turning abruptly to the left, proceeded along a platform of alluvium, at least a thousand feet in thickness, for more than a mile, before it descended, which it did at last very abruptly down a steep sandy slope. The mass of alluvium was, in many places, almost pure sand, but in general many pebbles and boulders were mixed with it. Towards the river it presented scarped cliffs, in which its composition was well seen.

POPULUS EUPHRATICA.

October, 1847.

The Shayuk, where I descended to it, flowed through a wide gravelly plain, varying in breadth from one to two miles, and quite destitute of vegetation. Rocky spurs of black slate and conglomerate, with many granite veins, projecting from the mountains on the south, occasionally narrowed the valley, while the recesses were generally filled with a mass of alluvium. The river was occasionally divided into several branches. In some of the recesses small trees of a peculiar species of poplar (P. Euphratica) were not uncommon, growing in pure sand. This tree is remarkable for its extended distribution. Originally discovered on the banks of the Euphrates, it has been found by Griffith, and more recently by Dr. Stocks and others, to be abundant on the banks of the Indus, in Sind and Multan. It occurs also at intervals along the valley of the Indus, within the mountains, but appears to be far from common, and to confine itself to hot sandy places. In several parts of Nubra it is common enough, but only, so far as I have observed, on the south side of the Shayuk. This poplar is also remarkable for the very changeable shape of its leaves, which vary from broadly deltoid and coarsely toothed, to narrow-linear and quite entire. The leaves of the full-grown tree are generally broad and much toothed, while young plants have very narrow leaves; the shoots of pollarded plants, which are common, the tree being much used for fuel, are also narrow.

After proceeding parallel to the river for six or seven miles, I crossed to the right bank. The stream was undivided, and about a hundred yards broad. It had a considerable velocity, and was about three feet deep in the centre. Its bed was full of large waterworn boulders and gravel, and the banks on both sides were, for a great distance from the river, of similar structure, and so little elevated above its surface, that a very slight rise of the water would have been sufficient to submerge them.

From the village of Tsatti, at which I encamped on the 14th of October, I followed the course of the Shayuk to its junction with a large stream descending from the north, which, from the name of the district in which the junction is situated, is commonly called the Nubra river. Thence I ascended the latter stream for about twenty miles, with the intention of making an attempt to penetrate to the north-east, across the mountains to the Nubra Chu of Vigne; but the lateness of the season, and especially the occurrence of several falls of snow, which extended down the mountain slopes almost as far as the plain, induced me to place reliance on the assurances of the people of the valley, that the difficulties of the road would be quite insurmountable.

DISTRICT OF NUBRA.

October, 1847.

The district of Nubra includes the whole course of the Shayuk river, from its great bend to the eastward of the point where I joined it below Digar, till it again contracts nine or ten miles below the village of Unmaru; and also the lower part of the valley of the Nubra river, as far up, indeed, as population and cultivation extend. The place of junction of the two rivers is elevated, according to my observation of the boiling-point of water, about 10,600 feet above the level of the sea. This may be considered as the mean elevation of the whole district; for the cultivated tracts nowhere rise to any height above the bed of the rivers, which have everywhere a very gentle and apparently uniform inclination.

DESCRIPTION OF NUBRA.

October, 1847.

The valley of the Shayuk is widest at the point of its junction with the Nubra river. At this place the level plain, including the gently sloping alluvium on each side, has a breadth of about six miles. The width of the valley gradually diminishes as we recede from the centre, the mountains encroaching more and more, till at last they hem in the river, leaving no space for villages or cultivation, and the valley ceases to be inhabited. The centre of the plain is uniformly occupied by a flat gravelly expanse, one to three miles in width, scarcely raised above the surface of the river, which, when flooded, covers a great part of it. On both sides of this gravelly bed, low platforms of alluvium, in the form of triangles, with their apices resting on the mountain ravines, slope very gently towards the base of mountains, which rise abruptly and precipitously on both sides of the valley, to a height of three or four thousand feet. Some of the more projecting spurs, even where the width of the valley is greatest, advance so far into the open plain as to abut upon the river and compel the traveller to ascend their slopes, in order to cross them in travelling from village to village.

The gravelly plain over which the Shayuk flows, is usually quite devoid of vegetation. A few scattered bushes of Tamarix and Myricaria appear, indeed, near its junction with the Nubra river, but further up the gravel is absolutely bare: in this it contrasts strongly with similar portions in the valley of the Nubra river, which are densely wooded. The cause of this difference seems to lie in the frequent floods which have, at different periods, devastated the whole course of the Shayuk valley, from the glaciers of Sassar. These floods, which appear to be due to the blocking-up of the upper course of the river by the ice, have been most destructive to the prosperity of the valley.

VILLAGES.

October, 1847.

Throughout Nubra, the villages, with scarcely an exception, occupy the surface of the low platforms of alluvium which fill up the funnel-shaped terminations of the ravines. In Tibet the size of the villages, and the extent of cultivation by which they are surrounded, entirely depend on the supply of water and on the facility with which it can be diverted from its bed for purposes of irrigation; and as, in this district, the width and horizontality of the alluvial tracts are very favourable to the industry of man, the villages are in general large and surrounded with much cultivation. Indeed, a super-abundance of water is in general indicated by the swampy banks of the irrigation canals, as the water, oozing through the loose gravel of the platforms, produces a dense jungle of Hippopha? scrub, which makes the cultivated tracts conspicuous, even in winter, when the trees are bare of leaves and the fields of crops.

This copious supply of water no doubt depends on the great elevation of the surrounding mountains, which everywhere rise, if not above, yet almost to the level of perpetual snow, which is about 18,000 feet, so that at the head of each little stream there is either a glacier, or a snow-bed which does not entirely melt till the latter end of autumn, affording therefore a nearly perennial supply of water. Even in the hottest months slight falls of snow are of occasional occurrence at all elevations above 16,000 feet; and as every range rises much above that height, a small addition to the supply is thus obtained.

The villages have generally a few fruit-trees, as well as a good many poplars and willows, which yield almost the only timber the inhabitants can command. The walnut and El?agnus, both of which trees find their upper limit in Nubra, are so extremely scarce that they are not available for such purposes.

In most parts of Nubra the soil is very generally saline, the dry grassy plains which are common on the banks of the streams being generally covered with a copious efflorescence of carbonate of soda; while the abundance of Salsol? and other Chenopodiaceous plants on the dry alluvial plains, and even on the rocky hills, seems to prove that the saline matter is not confined to the immediate vicinity of water, or to the lowest levels, but is very generally diffused over the surface.

VALLEY OF NUBRA RIVER.

October, 1847.

The valley of the Nubra river, for upwards of twenty miles, is very similar in general character to that of the Shayuk. The same wide gravelly expanse occupies its centre, forming a plain of one or two miles in width, through which the river runs in many branches. A great part of this gravelly plain, particularly on the right side of the valley, is covered by a dense thicket of Hippopha?, extending continuously for four or five miles, usually impervious, except in certain beaten tracts, and tenanted by vast numbers of hares. The gravel on which this jungle grows is almost on a level with the river, so that it is very generally swampy, and traversed here and there by little streamlets of water. The Hippopha? is here a small tree, attaining a height of fifteen feet, with a short thick trunk and stiff crooked spinous branches.

CHIRASA.

October, 1847.

In several parts of the course of the Nubra river, low hills rise in the valley, isolated, or nearly so, from the mountain ranges behind, and forming, therefore, a remarkable feature. On one of these, on the right bank of the river, is situated the little fort and village of Chirasa, a considerable mass of houses, of a class a little better than those usual in the district, and conspicuous from their elevated position. The rock on which they stand is composed of a hard porphyry, which has been injected from below, and has displaced the black slate, which is the more usual rock in the lower part of this valley.

In the lower part of the ravine behind the town of Chirasa, the alluvium is more extensively developed than usual in this valley, where aqueous action seems in a great measure to have removed the accumulation of detritus, which once, no doubt, occupied the whole valley. Beds of gravelly conglomerate, at times passing into fine clay, may here be seen, at a height of perhaps 1000 feet, on the mountain-sides in isolated patches, generally faced by cliffs, in which a tendency to horizontal stratification is observable.

NUBRA VALLEY.

October, 1847.

The lower part of the Nubra valley is very fertile, and on the east side cultivation extends, with little interruption, from Tirit as far as Panamik, in a belt varying in width from a few hundred feet to nearly a mile. The villages are large, and seem populous. Many of the houses are very substantially built, and the long sacred walls, called Mané, are numerous, and of great length and size. Several watercourses, which are carried along the sides of the hills at an elevation of several hundred feet above the cultivation, and are easily recognizable by the fringe of Hippopha? bushes, which forms an impenetrable belt along their margins, indicate a degree of industry and energy very unusual in Tibet, where, however, the amount of cultivable land is seldom sufficient to promise much reward to any extensive and elaborate system of irrigation.

As the advanced period of the year rendered exploration at great elevations scarcely practicable, and made it desirable to reach a lower level as soon as possible, I did not remain more than a week in Nubra. On the 22nd of October I started from Lyakjung, at the mouth of the Nubra river, towards Iskardo, following the course of the Shayuk river. The district of Nubra extends about thirty miles below the junction of the river of that name with the Shayuk; but I found the level valley gradually to diminish in width as I descended. On the 22nd of October I encamped at Hundar; on the 23rd, at Tertse; and on the 24th at Unmaru, beyond which village there is no cultivation, and the valley becomes extremely narrow. On the 25th of October I reached an encamping ground called Kuru, at the termination of the Nubra district, where the mountains, which for three days had gradually been encroaching on the valley, completely closed in, and the river entered a deep gorge, walled in on both sides by lofty and almost perpendicular cliffs of black slate.

LOWER NUBRA.

October, 1847.

FOSSIL SHELLS IN THE CLAY.

October, 1847.

The general aspect of the lower part of Nubra requires no particular description, as it presents much the same features as the other parts of the district. The mountains on both sides of the valley are not less steep, barren, and inaccessible than elsewhere in Tibet. The alluvial platforms, which were everywhere present, increased remarkably in thickness as they diminished in size. Widely spread out in the broadest parts of the valley, they were not more than from twenty to forty feet thick where cut across by the river, and sloped very gently. In the narrower parts of the valley they were often not less than a hundred feet high along the river. In structure these platforms varied much. The greater part certainly consisted of gravel and clay, quite unstratified, but the lower beds were very frequently fine clay, or fine sand, or alternations of these two. The superposition of the coarse beds to the fine was nearly uniformly observed, though occasionally, above the fine clays, alternations of gravel with thin beds of sand or clay were met with. In one place, on the north side of the river, nearly opposite to the village of Tertse, I found these beds to contain fresh-water shells. The fossiliferous bed was elevated very little above the present level of the river, and was composed of a fine somewhat sandy clay, stratified horizontally, and covered with upwards of fifty feet of coarse conglomerate. The shells, which were all small, were species of Planorbis and Lymn?a, apparently identical with those afterwards found in the neighbourhood of Iskardo, but quite different from those of the salt lake of Thogji.

The villages of Lower Nubra are not numerous, but some of them possess very extensive cultivation. Hundar in particular, at the mouth of a large ravine, by which a considerable tributary stream descends from the south (at the source of which there is a pass across the range into the valley of the Indus), is a very large village (probably the most populous in Nubra), with very fine orchards of apricot-trees. Walnut, mulberry, and El?agnus became common at Unmaru, on the north bank of the river. Perhaps the gradual narrowing of the valley may have a considerable effect in modifying the climate, for the diminution of elevation is very inconsiderable, the river at Kuru being nearly 10,300 feet above the sea, or not more than 300 feet lower than the junction of the Shayuk and Nubra rivers.

In this part of its course, and at this advanced season, when the great summer floods are over, the Shayuk appears to be everywhere fordable. It is, however, a noble stream, with a rapid current; and is usually divided into many channels. Above Hundar, where I forded it, one branch was not less than 300 feet wide, and was from one to two feet deep. Opposite Tertse, again, I found the stream running in seven branches, of which three were from 100 to 150 feet wide, and had an average depth of about two feet, increased in the centre to about three. The other branches were, however, much smaller.

GREAT FLOOD OF THE SHAYUK.

October, 1847.

In several places between Hundar and Tertse, on the gravelly plain which skirted the river, I observed manifest traces of a flood, consisting of such rejectamenta as are usually seen deposited by swollen streams, fragments of wood and twigs, straw, sheep's dung, and other light materials, forming a bed two or three feet wide, continuous in many places for hundreds of yards, at a distance of not less than half a mile from the river. To my inquiries as to the nature of the flood which had deposited these reliqui?, the invariable reply was, that a great flood had taken place five years before, by the bursting of a lake called Khundan Chu, at which time the whole course of the river was devastated, and much destruction of property, sometimes even life, ensued, particularly in the narrower parts of the valley. In most parts of the world the preservation of such insignificant vestiges of a flood for so long a period would have been impossible; but here, where rain is almost unknown, and where the winter falls of snow seldom exceed one or two inches, there are no disturbing causes which could prevent them from remaining till carried away or altered in position by another similar flood. I should, therefore, have had no difficulty in attaching credence to the testimony of the inhabitants of the country, even had I not, in my journey down the river, received the most abundant proofs that the flood was everywhere well known, at least as far as Iskardo.

The vegetation of Lower Nubra had so entirely disappeared, that I could form scarcely any idea of its character; but, as the general aspect of the country was unaltered, I had no reason to look for any change. In the gravelly bed of the river, bushes of Myricaria and Tamarix were common; thickets of Hippopha?, loaded with very acid yellow berries, lined the watercourses, forming an impenetrable barrier. Little bushes of Artemisia, Lycium, Perowskia, and Ephedra, were also occasionally seen on the rocks, but the herbaceous vegetation had quite withered away. In the villages, the cultivated trees were also rapidly shedding their leaves; constant night frosts, and frequent falls of snow on the mountain-sides, having so far reduced the temperature that winter was evidently at hand.

NARROW GORGE.

October, 1847.

Below the village of Unmaru, the width of the valley had so much diminished that many of the lateral spurs advanced close to the river. Several of these prominent spurs consisted of trap rocks, various forms of basalt and greenstone occurring, with not unfrequently veins of coarse serpentine. Stratified rocks, however, still continued, but the hard black slate was often with difficulty distinguishable from the basalt.

My encamping ground at Kuru was on the north side of the river, and close to the gorge into which the Shayuk disappeared among rocks of black slate, which rise almost perpendicularly from the river. A small tributary, descending from the north, ran parallel and close to the rugged mountain spur which formed the barrier of the valley; and immediately above, a deep bay or recess in the mountains was entirely filled with beds of loose sand, resting on the alluvial clay formation. The appearance of the place was altogether most singular. Much of the light sandy beds were evidently of very recent origin, probably referable to the great flood five years before, at which time the waters, suddenly checked at the gorge, after having spread out ad libitum in the open valley of Nubra, rose to a height of not less than fifty feet above their usual level, and required several days to subside. The beds of clay under the loose sand were all stratified, and were, no doubt, referable to the same lacustrine formation as the fossiliferous beds observed higher up the valley of the Shayuk.

WARIS RAVINE.

October, 1847.

From Kuru there is no road along the bank of the river, the rocks being on both sides too precipitous to permit of a passage, and the river too deep to be forded. In winter, when the river is frozen, travellers are able to continue their course along its bed by proceeding on the ice in those places where the steepness of the rocks obstructs the passage; but at other seasons it is necessary to make a long détour, and to ascend a lateral ravine for eight miles before a point is reached where the steep ridge is capable of being crossed. Leaving Kuru on the morning of the 26th of October, I encamped at the village of Waris, elevated 12,400 feet, among a few fields from which the crops had long been cleared. The few huts which formed the village contained no inhabitants, being abandoned, as soon as the harvest has been reaped and housed, for the more temperate climate of the river valley.

The ravine by which I ascended from Kuru was very narrow and rugged. The road generally lay at a considerable height on the steep slopes of the hills, but three times crossed the stream; once by a natural bridge composed of a huge mass of rock lying across a very narrow part of the stream, where it had worn out in the solid rock a channel not more than from three to twelve feet wide. The steep sloping banks of the ravine were usually shingly and devoid of vegetation; but on the margin of the little stream there were a good many shrubs, principally willows, and occasionally the cordate-leaved poplar so commonly cultivated in the Tibetan villages, which here appeared quite indigenous.

The geological structure of this rocky ravine was very intricate, from the great mass of igneous rock, granite, greenstone, and amygdaloid, which everywhere occurred. A very hard conglomerate, similar in character to that of the upper Indus and of the Giah ravine, was also observed at intervals, alternating with very highly metamorphic slates. After about five miles, the road left the main ravine to ascend into a lateral branch, much more steep than the former. Here masses of alluvial conglomerate of great thickness rested on the sides of the mountains, many hundred feet above the bed of the stream. During the day the weather had been very cloudy and threatening, and a little snow fell in the afternoon at my encamping ground at Waris.

PASS ABOVE WARIS.

October, 1847.

During the night more snow fell, and on the morning of the 27th it was four or five inches deep. From my camp I ascended at once, very steeply, to the crest of the ridge on the left, which I then followed in a succession of undulations in a westerly direction. As soon as I had gained the summit, a reach of the Shayuk was seen, distant perhaps a mile and a half, flowing among steep black rocks, with here and there banks of gravel at the bends. The view from the ridge was very striking, the dark colour of the rocks below contrasting strongly with the snowy whiteness of the upper parts of the mountains, which, on the south side of the Shayuk, rise very abruptly to a height of perhaps 18,000 feet.

The summit of the ridge was not less than 14,700 feet above the sea. At this elevation, the snow, on southern exposures, had, by eleven A.M., quite melted, under the influence of a bright sun. Along the ridge, tufts of a prickly Statice, still displaying the remains of flowers, were very common, and a few stunted trees of juniper occurred at intervals. The descent from the ridge was exceedingly abrupt (three thousand feet in less than a mile), into a narrow valley, in which I encamped among the fields of a summer village named Boghdan, now, like the one I had left in the morning, deserted by its inhabitants, who had gone for the winter to the village of Chulungka, nine miles distant, on the banks of the Shayuk. I was now in the district of Chorbat, the ridge which I had just crossed being the boundary of Nubra on the west.

BOGHDAN RAVINE.

October, 1847.

The Boghdan ravine, though very narrow and tortuous, is well wooded with small trees of poplar and willow, and with shrubs, chiefly of Hippopha? and Myricaria. These plants are entirely confined to the level bottom of the ravine, forming a belt, ten or twenty feet wide, on each side of the little stream. After a descent of three miles, I again joined the Shayuk, along which a journey of four days brought me to Siksa, the principal village of Chorbat, encamping on the way at the villages of Chulungka, Turtuk, and Pranu.

DISTRICT OF CHORBAT.

October, 1847.

The district of Chorbat is a dependency of the government of Iskardo, which, like that of Le, is subject to Kashmir. The desert country by which Nubra and Chorbat are separated has, for the present, acted as a barrier to the further extension eastward of the Mahommedan religion, which is now universally that of the people of the whole of the Iskardo (or Balti) district, as well as of Dras. On the Indus, and in the valleys south of it, there is no uninhabited tract between the two, so that the Mahommedan and Buddhist population are in direct contact. The result is, that Mahommedanism is in that part gradually, though very slowly, extending to the eastward.

In this part of its course the Shayuk river is in general very rapid, and is hemmed in so closely by the mountains on both sides, that little space is left for the accumulation of alluvium, except where considerable lateral streams join the main river. The barrier by which Chorbat is separated from Nubra is the most contracted part of the valley, and the general ruggedness by degrees becomes less marked as we continue to descend the river. The mountains, everywhere steep, rocky, and inaccessible, close in general to within a quarter of a mile of one another, and their projecting spurs, at short intervals, advance quite to the centre of the valley, forming deep bays, either filled with sand or occasionally occupied by platforms of conglomerate, on the top of which, where water is procurable, there is generally a village. The river, winding from one side of its channel to the other, washes the foot of each rocky spur, so that the road frequently quits the level of the river to ascend abruptly the rocky hills, which are often so steep as to be only accessible by means of scaffoldings of wood, propped up against the face of the perpendicular cliffs by trunks of trees. Once or twice the road lay at a great height above the river for several miles, without descending at all to its level.

BRIDGES.

October, 1847.

The channel of the Shayuk is generally formed of coarse gravel or large rolled stones, and immense boulders are everywhere scattered on the level banks. The stream is rapid and deep, and the fall much more considerable than in Nubra, Siksa being only about 9000 feet above the sea. It is nowhere in the whole distance fordable; and as the villages lie alternately on opposite sides of the river, I had occasion to cross it three times before reaching Siksa. In every case a narrow and rapid part of the river is selected, the bridges being composed of poplar trunks, stretching from bank to bank, with a light and rude hand-rail of hurdles to give support. Opposite Turtuk, the bridge, which rests upon piers projecting on each side eight feet into the river, measures twenty-five paces, so that the river is not more than eighty feet wide.

Where platforms of alluvium occupy the lateral ravines, they attain a very great thickness, seldom less than two hundred feet, and occasionally at least twice as much. They are generally cut off in steep cliffs by the river, beautifully showing the structure of the alluvium. In the sections of these masses of boulders and clay, I several times observed that the strata, instead of being horizontal, were highest in the middle and sloped gently downwards on either side. This would indicate, I think, a local origin of these deposits, which probably commenced under water, close to a ravine on the mountain-side, and gradually extended, by the addition of successive layers, till they met similar accumulations, derived from the opposite side of the valley.

VILLAGES.

October, 1847.

In the upper part of the district of Chorbat, the villages are few and very insignificant, but lower down several are of great extent. Chulungka, the highest village, consists of three or four houses, on a small platform about fifty feet above the river. This village stood formerly on the low ground close to the Shayuk, but the cultivable soil at the lower level was entirely swept away by the flood of 1842, so that the inhabitants were obliged to change the position of their houses. The first considerable village is Turtuk, on the south side of the river. Pranu, on the north side, is remarkable for the great extent of its cultivation, and for several isolated rocks, behind which the alluvium has accumulated to a thickness of at least six or seven hundred feet.

All the villages are surrounded by fine orchards of apricot-trees. Walnut and mulberry trees are also common; and at Turtuk I saw a few vines; these latter are, however, by no means generally cultivated in the district. Willows are less frequent than in Nubra, but there are plenty of poplars. The black poplar is the common species, but a white downy-leaved species (P. alba), which is cultivated also in Kunawar, and which seems to be indigenous in some of the Himalayan valleys south of Kashmir, occurs for the first time at Turtuk. The fields are everywhere terraced, and water seems to be very abundant.

ROCKS OF CHORBAT.

October, 1847.

A very remarkable outburst of granite commences at the junction of the Boghdan ravine with the Shayuk, and continues as far as Siksa, altering the secondary rocks so that they can scarcely be recognized. The granite is frequently in great mass, and usually occupies the lowest part of the valley, sending out gigantic veins or branches into the overlying slates, which are often transformed into a coarse serpentine. The hard conglomerate which is associated with the slate, seems the same as occurs in Lower Nubra, so that probably the slates are also a continuation of the same series, and the whole may even be connected with the conglomerates and slates of the Giah valley and of the Indus below Le, the strike of which to the N.W. or N.N.W. would carry them nearly in the direction of Chorbat. Here the intrusion of the granite renders both dip and strike obscure, the beds being frequently quite vertical.

PLAIN OF KHAPALU.

October, 1847.

From Siksa, close to which there is a small fort or castle on an isolated rock, a road leads across the Hanu pass into the valley of the Indus. By this route Mr. Vigne proceeded when he abandoned his intention of penetrating by the Shayuk to Nubra, and it has since been crossed by several travellers at different times. It is, indeed, a route very commonly adopted in travelling from Iskardo to Le, as the lower part of the Shayuk is more open and practicable than the Indus below the junction of the river of Dras.

Below Siksa, the valley of the Shayuk continues narrow for eight or ten miles. It then begins again to expand, and its width continues to increase as far as Khapalu, which is situated near the centre of a wide plain similar to that of Nubra, and, like that, coincident with the junction of a large river from the north. It is certainly worthy of note, that it is always at the point of junction of large tributaries that the valley of the Shayuk is widest, and that the evidences of the former existence of lakes are most evident, while in the intermediate parts of its course the valley is narrow and rugged, and shows no certain indications of having been at any period lacustrine.

MACHULU RIVER.

November, 1847.

The great axis of the plain of Khapalu is from south-east to north-west, in the direction of the river Machulu, which runs through a very open and wide gravelly plain, apparently for a considerable distance. This stream, which is probably at least as large as the Nubra river, has its source in heavily-snowed mountains to the north. The general surface of the plain is gravelly, and its appearance on the whole is so similar to that of Nubra that no detailed description is necessary. The river divides in the open gravelly plain into numerous branches, which separate to a considerable distance from one another, and ramify very irregularly. There is not much alluvial accumulation in this plain, except in the immediate vicinity of Khapalu, where a very curious isolated rock of black slate rises abruptly in the middle of the plain, its base being washed by one branch of the Shayuk, now (after its junction with the Machulu) too deep to be forded. Behind this rock there is an accumulation of alluvium, forming a steep ridge six or seven hundred feet in height; which it is necessary to cross in travelling from Surmu to Khapalu, as the abruptness with which the clay-slate rock rises out of the water, completely prevents a passage along the margin of the river.

On the 2nd of November I forded the Shayuk a little below the village of Abadan, where it runs in two branches, each about a hundred yards wide, and with an average depth of about two feet. A little further down it is joined by the Machulu, and it does not appear to be anywhere fordable in its further course, even in winter, so that probably the influx of water brought by that stream is very considerable. I did not, however, see the junction, which is situated on the north side of the plain, quite out of the direct road towards the town of Khapalu.

Where the valley is widest, the mountain ranges on both sides of the river are well seen. The range south of the Shayuk rises close at hand into a very steep mountain mass, now much snowed. A pass which leads from Khapalu to Kartash was (I was informed) already shut up by snow, and impracticable for travellers. To the north, up the wide valley of the Machulu, the mountains are more distant, and the main chain of the Muztagh is evidently fully in sight; the absence of hills close at hand allowing a considerable extent of it to be seen; it was very heavily snowed. The nearest, and apparently loftiest peak, bore N. 13 W. (Magn.) from Surmu.

KHAPALU.

November, 1847.

The principal villages of this open tract are Surmu and Khapalu, both on the south side of the Shayuk, and separated from one another by a high alluvial ridge, which rests on a bold scarped rock rising immediately out of the river. Surmu has a very long and narrow tract of cultivation, skirting the gravelly river-bed. It occupies the slopes of a projecting platform of alluvium of no great height. In this village many fields, on a level with the river, have evidently been destroyed by the flood of 1842, as fruit-trees were still standing among the gravel and shingle of the river-beds. Khapalu, on the other hand, which is situated at the point of junction of a considerable stream, occupies the surface of a thick bed of alluvium of great extent, sloping very steeply from the apex of the triangle in a recess among the mountains to its base, which is formed by the Shayuk. The fort of Khapalu is perched at a great height on a remarkable projecting scarped rock, just at the mouth of the ravine behind the village. The cultivation has a width of not less than two miles, and, as it abounds in fruit-trees, it must in summer, when the fields are green and the trees are in leaf, be a place (for Tibet) of considerable beauty. From the abruptness of the slope of the alluvial platform, the terrace-walls of the fields are very high, often as much as six feet. The fruit-trees are the same as those commonly cultivated in Nubra and Chorbat; the elm and El?agnus of Nubra are also common, as well as the white poplar. At Khapalu there are also a few plane-trees, which do not extend further east.

The Lycium of Nubra, which had entirely disappeared in the narrow and rocky parts of the Shayuk, reappeared as soon as the valley spread out into a gravelly plain, being common at Abadan, and abundant at Surmu and Khapalu. A species of berberry, a genus wanting in the higher parts of the Shayuk (except in the mountains, where a small alpine species is occasionally seen), was found in Surmu. The species was apparently identical with the common berberry of Europe, which extends even into the drier valleys of the Himalaya. I also recognized a few other new plants-a small, almost herbaceous Sophora was one of these, and, still more remarkable, Peganum Harmala, a species which extends from the Mediterranean flora as far east as the Punjab, and which indicates a very considerable amount of summer heat.

The shrubby Hippopha? is still very plentiful, but, either from more careful cultivation, or because the nature of the slopes prevents the formation of swampy margins to the little irrigation streams, it does not spread to so great an extent over the cultivated tracts, which, therefore, in the winter season look considerably more bare than those around the villages of Nubra.

The height of the bed of the Shayuk at Khapalu may be roughly estimated at about 8000 feet, as the determination of the boiling-point of water at my tent, which was high up in the village, gave an elevation of 8300 feet. I arrived at Khapalu from Surmu on the 3rd of November, and remained there during the 4th. The weather, which for some days had been very unsettled and disagreeable, suddenly cleared up on the 2nd of November, and continued for nearly a week very fine, the days being uniformly bright and sunny, with a gentle wind blowing up the valley of the Shayuk. The temperature in the sun was extremely agreeable, though the shade maximum was never much higher than 50°. The nights were clear and cold, the thermometer falling at Khapalu more than 14° below the freezing-point.

A little below Khapalu I found a number of people washing the sand of the Indus for gold; but the produce seemed to be very trifling, and the work is only carried on during winter, when labour is of no value for other purposes. I purchased for a rupee (paying, I believe, a good deal more than the value) the produce in gold-dust of one man's labour for three weeks. I suppose, however, he only worked occasionally.

BRAGHAR.

November, 1847.

Below Khapalu the valley of the Shayuk again begins to contract, but the open plain may be considered to extend for some way below the village of Braghar, where a large tributary joins from the north, and to which place there is a great deal of cultivation, especially on the right bank. Immediately below Braghar, there is a remarkable saline grassy plain, very swampy, and traversed by numerous small streamlets, in which a Chara and a linear-leaved Potamogeton were abundant. Below this plain the mountain spurs close in upon the river, contracting its channel very much, and frequently preventing all passage along the bank. The narrow portion of the river extends within a few miles of Iskardo, or for at least thirty miles of river distance. Throughout this tract the valley is very similar to that between Nubra and Chorbat. Villages are numerous, occupying very elevated platforms, on which there is frequently luxuriant cultivation. In many of the narrowest and most rugged places there is no passage along the river, and the road crosses spurs of considerable elevation.

Between Kunes and Kuru the narrowness of the river is probably at its maximum, as the road lies altogether along a ridge, elevated perhaps a thousand feet, to which the ascents and descents are extremely abrupt. Many parts of this ridge are capped with alluvium, which occurs in many places along this part of the course of the Shayuk in very great quantity. The largest village on this part of the river is Kiris, situated just above the junction of the Shayuk and Indus, on a nearly level alluvial platform of large size. Round Kiris there is a very extensive deposit of lacustrine clay, very fine, and horizontally stratified. Good sections of this, sometimes at least fifty feet in thickness, are exposed east of Kiris, not far from the Shayuk. I did not observe any fossils; but in so cursory an inspection as I was able to make, it is very probable that I may have overlooked them.

JUNCTION OF SHAYUK WITH INDUS.

November, 1847.

The junction of the Shayuk and Indus rivers takes place a little way below Kiris. The Shayuk is considerably wider and more rapid than the Indus, but much less deep, so that neither river so decidedly preponderates over the other as to enable their relative size to be determined at a glance. Probably the discharge of the two will be found nearly equal. The direction of the united streams is the same as that of the Shayuk, which the Indus joins nearly at a right angle.

The granitic and slate rocks of the district of Chorbat are continued unaltered as far as the junction of the Indus and Shayuk. In many places the granite so predominates as to form almost the whole mass of the mountains, but more generally there is also a good deal of slate. The schists are of very various appearance; a very hard black slate is the most common, but in contact with and near the granite many portions of the slaty mass are quite undistinguishable from gneiss. The direction and inclination of the dip vary extremely. In general the granitic veins appear to be parallel to the strata of schist, but instances are not unfrequent where vertical strata of schist are cut through by horizontal veins of granite.

NAR.

November, 1847.

On the 9th of November I encamped at Kiris, and next day I passed the junction of the Indus and Shayuk. The direction of the united streams soon becomes nearly due north, and it flows for many miles through a very narrow ravine, along which the road is of a most difficult nature, partly high on the mountains, partly on platforms of alluvium, and occasionally over angular blocks of rock, which are piled in enormous heaps along the banks of the river. At the most northerly point of the river, where the ravine is narrowest, I passed through the cultivated lands of the village of Nar, which extend for more than two miles on the surface of an alluvial platform many hundred feet above the bottom of the valley. Leaving this village, I continued to ascend, and entirely lost sight of the Indus, which flowed to the south-west, while the road kept winding among rocky hills, gradually ascending to the crest of a low pass, among rocks of black slate, which entirely prevented me from seeing the nature of the surrounding country. From the summit of the ascent I descended gradually down a narrow valley, and emerging at last rather suddenly on an open plain, I found myself in sight of the valley of Iskardo, which presented to the eye an expanse of level ground much greater than I had seen since leaving Khapalu, to which and to Nubra the district round Iskardo bears a very close resemblance.

When the road entered the open country, at the north-east corner of the plain of Iskardo, it lay for miles over loose sand, utterly barren, forming low undulating hills, which rested upon a deposit of pure white clay. Three miles from Iskardo, a spur from the northern mountains advances close to the river, and the road skirting the latter is for a short distance rocky and uneven. Soon, however, it again enters a tract of bare sand, which extends as far as the ferry immediately above the town of Iskardo. The river, being here unfordable, is crossed by means of a flat-bottomed boat.

ISKARDO.

November, 1847.

The plain of Iskardo, which surrounds the junction of the Shigar river with the Indus, is nearly twenty miles in length, and has an average breadth of about five miles. It is elevated about 7200 feet above the level of the sea. In its very centre, on the south bank of the Indus, and opposite to the junction of the Shigar river, an isolated rock of black slate rises to the height of nearly a thousand feet, directly overhanging the Indus, parallel to which it stretches for nearly a mile. It is faced on all sides by perpendicular cliffs, inaccessible except at the west end, where a steep and difficult path leads to the summit, which is a long narrow ridge.

The name Iskardo is a Mahommedan corruption of a Tibetan name Skardo, or Kardo, as it is very commonly pronounced; but as the first-mentioned name is most familiar to foreigners, and is likely to become universal, as well from the inhabitants of the district being all Mahommedans, as from the country being now subject to Kashmir, it is better, I think, to retain it, than to attempt to substitute the more pure Tibetan pronunciation.

Pl. II.

J. W. del. W. L. Walton, Lithog. Printed by Hullmandel & Walton.

ISKARDO

From South-east of the Valley.

The mountains which surround the Iskardo plain rise at once with great abruptness, and are very steep and bare. Those on the south side, derived from the range which separates the Indus from the table-land of Deotsu, the axis of which is not more than ten or fifteen miles distant, rise very abruptly in rocky pinnacles, covered, at the time I reached the valley, with much snow. Two spurs from this range run forward to the Indus, one five miles east of Iskardo, the other about three miles to the west of it, dividing the whole south side of the valley into three deep bays, each watered by a considerable stream, whose source is in the southern mountains. The mountains on the north side, the terminal spurs of two great branches of the Kuenlun or Muztagh, which flank the Shigar river, are considerably lower, but equally barren and desolate.

The river Indus traverses the open valley in an extremely winding course. At one time it washes the base of the cliffs which terminate the projecting mountain spurs; at another it flows between high banks of alluvial conglomerate or of fine clay. Not unfrequently these clayey cliffs recede to a considerable distance from the river, in which case the intervening space is generally sandy. A small branch of the stream, at times little more than a chain of pools, often runs close to the cliffs, indicating a former channel of the river; and when this is the case, the low ground between the two channels is often swampy and grassy.

The bed of the Indus in this part of its course is very little inclined, the stream flowing in general very gently over a sandy bed, its surface quite smooth and tranquil, occasionally only a little rippled in turning round a projecting rocky spur, where its bottom is gravelly and the inclination perhaps a little greater. Opposite Iskardo the Indus is even in the depth of winter a noble stream, often more than 500 feet wide, and nine or ten feet deep in the centre.

Iskardo occupies a nearly level plain of fine alluvial clay elevated fifty or sixty feet above the river, and extending from the isolated rock which overhangs the Indus towards the mountains on the south side of the valley. To the right and left of the rocky hill, two small streams have excavated for themselves out of the soft clay deep and wide ravines, which are covered with coarse gravel, and are faced by more or less steep banks of clay or sand. The surface of the platform on which all the cultivated ground lies is watered by means of artificial canals, brought from a distance of nearly two miles, from the point where the streams issue from among the hills.

The neighbourhood of the rock of Iskardo was doubtless selected as the site of the principal town of the kingdom of Balti, from the advantages which it afforded as a place of defence; and in the days of the independence of the country a fortified palace occupied its eastern extremity, while the western and more accessible end was apparently protected by a series of rude works. The principal buildings of the palace seem to have been at the very base of the rock. A mass of ruins, showing large blocks of well-hewn stone, fragments of marble fountains, and some solid walls supporting terraces, which appear at one time to have been gardens, alone remain to show the former magnificence of the place. A mausoleum, raised to the memory of the last independent king, Ahmed Shah, perched on a rock perhaps 300 feet above the plain, is still untouched and uninjured.

An aqueduct or canal extends in a direct line from the palace towards the mountains, a distance of at least a mile. It is an exceedingly massive work, consisting of two walls raised perhaps fifteen feet above the level of the plain, and built of very large blocks of hewn stone. The intervening space is filled with earth. At present, a small conduit, a foot or so wide, brings all the water which is required for the use of the inhabitants of Iskardo; but a very large quantity might be conveyed along the aqueduct, and the work is so strong and substantial that very little repair would be requisite to restore it to its original condition.

The fortified post of the present rulers of the country is built on the margin of the platform of alluvium, on the right bank of the little stream which joins the Indus to the east of the rock of Iskardo, and is separated by a hollow from the palace and the principal part of the village. It is built of unburnt brick, and is extremely irregular in shape, with rounded bastions at the angles.

The houses of Iskardo are very much scattered over a large extent of surface, so that there is no appearance of a town; nor is the population in the immediate neighbourhood of the rock so extensive as that of some of the more remote villages in the valley, and especially of those on the banks of the Shigar river, which are very richly cultivated. Many of the Iskardo houses, however, are very good, being often of two stories, and built of unburnt bricks in a framework of wood. Latticed windows, covered with paper or small plates of mica, are also common. The roofs are all flat, and covered with mud beaten hard.

LACUSTRINE CLAY.

November, 1847.

The lacustrine clay formation occurs in great quantity throughout the valley of Iskardo, and is nowhere seen in greater perfection than in the immediate neighbourhood of the town, where the cliffs facing the Indus, and those along the little lateral streams which descend from the south, exhibit an abundance of sections of these beds. The height of the cliffs is very variable; but it is seldom less than thirty feet, and to the east of the town is as much as a hundred feet. The clay formation varies much in appearance, being most commonly a very fine unctuous cream-coloured clay, stratified quite horizontally, but occasionally gritty and mixed with numerous particles of mica. Now and then thin beds of sand and of small waterworn pebbles alternate with the finer clays. In many places near the rock of Iskardo, the beds are very irregular, undulating a good deal, and at times exhibiting very remarkable flexures, as if the isolated rocky mass (which must have once been under water) had formed eddies in the lake, and prevented that regularity of deposition which is elsewhere so universal.

Fossils are very rare in these clays, but occurred in several different localities. Close to Iskardo I once found a very few small specimens of a Lymn?a and Planorbis, but after repeatedly searching carefully did not succeed in obtaining any more. I was more fortunate in two places east of Iskardo, where fresh-water shells are sufficiently common in one or two thin seams of very fine clay, mixed with a good deal of apparently vegetable matter. The great mass of the clay is, however, quite non-fossiliferous.

The surface of the clay formation round Iskardo is very undulating, and is often covered with masses of large boulders. Opposite two of the ravines which penetrate the mountains on the southern side of the valley, two very remarkable banks of boulders project forward into the valley. They consist of very large fragments of rock, angular or more or less rounded, piled on one another to a height of forty or fifty feet. They terminate abruptly, and are, I think, evidently moraines.

On the very top of the isolated rock, in the middle of the Iskardo plain, horizontal beds of coarse sandstone rest upon the hard clay-slate of which the rock is composed. This sandstone crumbles with great ease in the hand, the particles of which it is composed being very slightly coherent. These beds, in which I could find no traces of shells or of vegetable remains, are elevated at least 800 or 1000 feet above the level of the Indus. The sandstone seems to cap the whole hill, but is exposed only in a few places, being in a great measure covered by the loose drift or alluvium which has been deposited above it.

VEGETATION.

November, 1847.

The vegetation of Iskardo had so entirely disappeared, that I was able to form very little idea of its nature. A few shrubby species, and some withered fragments of autumn flowering plants, alone remained. On the whole, I was struck with the similarity of the few plants which I recognized with those of Nubra and Le. Artemisi? and Chenopodiace? were still abundant. Hippopha? was the universal shrub along all the streamlets, and Lycium was common in sandy places; a berberry (the same already seen at Khapalu) was also frequent. The few novelties were Kashmir plants. Lycopsis arvensis, Prunella vulgaris, a thistle, a species of Sium, some gentians, and Ranunculus aquatilis, were the most Indian forms which I met with. From the mountains I procured specimens of a juniper (J. excelsa), and of the alpine birch of the Himalaya, which skirts the southern borders of the Tibetan region, without extending into the driest parts of that country.