I reached the Sikh fort at Dras, which was distant eleven miles, about two o'clock; the road was pretty level and the valley open, with low hills on either hand. The depth of snow increased as I advanced, and was three feet in the plain round the fort. Here I was greeted by the most unwelcome tidings, that my advance so far was fruitless, the pass in front being blocked up with snow. For this I was quite unprepared, having been led to believe that the road to Kashmir in this direction was always open, and no hint having been given me at Iskardo that my delay there might in the least prevent my reaching Kashmir. The heavy snow-fall of the last three or four days seemed to have been something quite unusual; and it had accumulated, as I was told, on the pass to a depth which quite precluded all possibility of a passage for many days to come.
Notwithstanding all these assurances, I should certainly have tried to advance at least as far as Maten, had I not found at Dras one of the principal inhabitants of Kargyl, who had returned the day before from that place, after attempting in the morning to advance towards the pass, which is ten miles further on, and being stopped by finding the snow ten and twelve feet deep, and quite soft. After the assurances of this traveller, I should not have been justified in taking so many porters across the pass, supposing them to have acceded to my wishes to make the attempt; I therefore very reluctantly gave up the idea of proceeding.
It then became a question what I should do. It might and would probably be many weeks before the pass would be practicable for loaded men. To have remained at Dras so long would have been impossible. The demands of my party for fuel were found very difficult to supply, even for a day, the faggots of brushwood, which alone are there available, being soon consumed, and, therefore, unwillingly parted with; I therefore resolved to return to Iskardo, and remain there till the return of spring should enable me to resume my travels, and to visit the district further down the Indus, before crossing into Kashmir.
My return journey, being from a severe to a milder climate, was sufficiently agreeable. At first a succession of bright and clear days reduced the temperature very much. The thermometer fell to zero in the mornings, and the frost throughout the day was intense. I was no longer able to inhabit my tent, which I had continued to occupy up to the period of my arrival at Dras, where, in the Sikh fort, I found, rather to my surprise, a room, with a fire-place and chimney, allotted for my accommodation by the kindness of the commandant. In descending again towards the Indus, I took shelter in the villages, occupying, if possible, a cow-house in preference to one used by the inhabitants. The houses are generally built of waterworn stones, without cement, but plastered with mud outside and inside. The roofs are flat; the rafters are unsawn trees or branches of poplar, covered with willow twigs, over which is laid a thick coating of mud. A hole in the centre of the roof serves for a chimney, the fire being made in the centre of the floor. In some of the poorer villages the houses were less elaborate, consisting merely of wattle-work of willow twigs, covered with a thin coating of clay.
In the open plain below Dras I observed many withered stems of Prangos, the celebrated Umbelliferous plant so much valued by the inhabitants of Dras as a food for their sheep, still bearing ripe seeds. Juniper, too, was common, even along the bank of the stream. As I descended the river, I found that a very few days had made a great change in the temperature. The river was everywhere hard frozen, and all the little streams which ran down the mountain-sides were coated with a thick shell of ice. More than once I saw a waterfall with a covering, perhaps a yard in thickness, of clear blue ice, under which the little streamlet could be distinctly seen. At Ulding, though the cold was severe, I found the ground partially free of snow, so that the amount of fall, at that distance from the central chain of mountains, had been quite insignificant.
On the 19th of December, on which day I regained the valley of the Indus, it was again snowing heavily, after an interval of exactly seven days. The river was now entirely frozen over, and so solid, that one of my servants, a native of India, losing his way in the snow-storm, instead of turning to the left on arriving at the Indus, walked across the river to a village on the right bank, without being aware that he had quitted the proper road.
Instead of keeping the left bank of the river, as I had done in my upward course, I crossed it on the ice about three or four miles above the village of Kartash, or Karmang, as it is also called, and kept on the north side till within a mile of Tolti. About two miles below Kartash, there are a succession of rapids in the stream, which extend, without much intermission, considerably more than a mile, and must produce a very considerable change in the elevation of its bed. The river was nowhere frozen between Kartash and Tolti, the stream being too rapid to freeze readily. In crossing to the left bank I made use of a raft of skins, which consisted of a light frame-work of willow rods, six feet square, resting on about a dozen inflated sheep or goat skins. This flimsy contrivance just floated on the water when loaded with three or four people.
At Tolti and at Karmang are the only rope-bridges which I saw on the Indus, above Iskardo. The cables used in their construction are here made of willow twigs, twisted into a thick rope. Seven such ropes on each side are combined to form the parallel lateral cables, about a yard apart, from which the road way of the bridge is suspended. These bridges are perfectly safe, though, from their open structure, rather formidable to those who are not accustomed to use them. The principle on which they are made is the same as one which is in use in all the hill provinces of India, from the Khasya mountains and Butan, as far west as the Indus; but the material differs with each particular locality, cane being used in the most eastern parts, rope (often of grass or Eriophorum) in the Western Himalaya; and in Tibet, where even that material is not available, willow twigs are employed as a substitute.
In many parts of the Indus valley, even in the most rugged and desolate spots, I noticed, occasionally, trees of the Elæagnus and of apricot, growing in rocky places along the river, where it was very evident that they had never been planted. The Elæagnus is always conspicuous, even in mid-winter, in consequence of the withered leaves remaining attached to the tree instead of falling at the end of autumn. Occasionally, no doubt, the occurrence of these trees was due to the former existence of villages in the vicinity of the places in which they were observed, but they also seemed sometimes to occur in places where no cultivation could ever have existed. Their occurrence, however, must, I think, be considered purely accidental: they were too few in number to be regarded as really indigenous; nor is it surprising that these trees, which are so extensively cultivated round all the villages of Baltistan, and so universally used as food by the inhabitants, should occasionally vegetate at a great distance from their usual place of growth.
I reached Iskardo on the evening of the 25th of December, and succeeded, without difficulty, in hiring a house sufficiently large to accommodate all my party. As I remained stationary at this place for two months, I was able to make some observations of the thermometer, and to watch the state of the weather during the whole of that period. The elevation of Iskardo above the level of the sea is about 7200 feet. Winter may be said to have commenced on the 28th of November, on which day the first snow fell. From that date, falls of snow recurred constantly at intervals, which varied from two or three days to a week. The earlier falls were very slight, not more than an inch or two in depth, but the quantity gradually increased, until each fall was from four to six inches. The entire depth of the snow in the middle of February, beyond which time the fresh falls were insignificant, was from fifteen to eighteen inches.
After each fall of snow, the weather usually became bright and calm, with a serene cloudless sky. The sun shone out brightly, and was agreeably warm to the feel, while the temperature of the air rose nearly to, or a little above, the freezing-point. In the earlier part of the winter, the snow melted rapidly, and the ground in the open valley was generally nearly free of it before the next fall. After the beginning of January, however, the cold increased, and the snow lay permanently, except on the most sunny slopes. The sun seemed to have much less power, and little thaw took place except on rocks and beaten paths. The diminution in the quantity of snow by evaporation was often considerable.
The greatest cold which was registered at Iskardo was at daybreak on the 8th of February, when Fahrenheit's thermometer stood at half a degree above zero. The mean temperature at sunrise during the whole winter was 19½°, and that at two P.M. 33¾°. The mean temperature during the period from the 28th of December to the 31st of January was 27½°, and from the 1st to the 24th of February 25¾°. The increase of cold was principally by the depression of the night temperature, the mean highest temperature being within a fraction of a degree the same during both periods.
On the first or second day of clear weather after a fall of snow, the temperature in the morning was often very low, with abundant hoar-frost, which, except at such times, was not seen at all. The surface of the plain was covered with a dense fog, which remained till nearly noon before the sun was able to dispel it. On the second or third day the sky would become hazy, the sun being partly obscured by a thin stratum of cloud at a great elevation. During the continuance of this haze, the temperature was always more elevated than when the sky was clear. The hazy weather was once or twice dissipated by violent winds, without any fall of snow on the open plain; but more generally it increased gradually, till the sky was completely and densely overcast, and snow began again to fall, perhaps most frequently during the night.
During the greater part of the winter the snow was invariably in extremely minute grains. It was not till the latter part of February, when spring was rapidly approaching, that large flakes fell. I more than once observed the phenomenon of small quantities of extremely fine-grained snow falling when the sky was quite clear, and the air at the surface of the earth quite motionless. During clear weather very little thaw took place, the cold produced by radiation appearing to counteract the sun's action; at the same time the snow diminished rapidly by evaporation, which was not the case when the sky was overcast.
The fall of snow was evidently much less considerable in the open plain than on the mountains round Iskardo. During the heavier falls, the snow on the steep mountain slopes often slipped downwards. It was but rarely that these avalanches were visible, but the noise of the snow in motion was heard like distant thunder, often many times a day, and the bare spots which it had left could be seen after the snow-storm had ceased. When the weather was settled, the wind was in general very gentle, and blew up the valley of the Indus; during snow-storms it was usually violent, and very irregular in direction. The storms came mostly from the south-west, a moisture-bringing upper current of air from that direction being condensed by the dry and cold north wind.
My collections had accumulated to such an extent, and got into such confusion, during five months of almost incessant travelling, that I was very glad to have an opportunity of devoting some time to their arrangement, and found, without difficulty, occupation for all my time during two months of rest. The snow was never so deep as to prevent me from taking regular exercise, so that I was soon familiar with all the roads in the neighbourhood of the town, and examined the cliffs of clay in every direction in search of fossils, without discovering (as I had some hopes of doing) any mammalian remains. The communication with Le was open all winter; I was therefore able to correspond with Captain Strachey, who, after examining the course of the Indus from the Chinese boundary downwards, was spending the winter there. By his assistance I succeeded in replenishing my store of tea and sugar, both of which were exhausted. The sugar which I procured from Le was very good, and the brick tea, though not superexcellent in quality, was, in the absence of better, quite good enough for use. Other supplies I had no difficulty in procuring at Iskardo, sheep and flour being abundant. The wood supplied for fuel was almost entirely Elæagnus, no wild timber occurring in the country.
The Thannadar of Iskardo, who is the deputy of Maharajah Gulab Singh of Kashmir, is the governor of all Balti, but he rules by means of native Mahommedan chiefs or rajahs. In some instances, where no opposition was made to the Sikh invasion, the former ruler was allowed to retain his position; in other cases a change was made. At Iskardo, Mahommed Shah, the present Rajah, had been an exile in Kashmir, from being on bad terms with his father. He is a feeble and sickly young man, without the energy of his father, M. Vigne's host in Iskardo. The inhabitants of Balti, though Tibetan in language and appearance, are all Mahommedans, and differ from the more eastern Tibetans of Le (who call themselves Bhotias, or inhabitants of Bhot) by being taller and less stoutly made. Their language, I am told, differs considerably from that of Le, but only as one dialect differs from another.
CHAPTER IX.
Leave Iskardo for Rondu—Insurrection in Gilgit—Koardu—Kamar—Enter narrow part of Indus valley—Difficult road—Range of mountains south of Indus—Description of Rondu—Thawar—Avalanches—Alluvium—Swing bridge—Villages—Juniper—Pinus excelsa—Rocks—Vegetation—Return to Iskardo—Agriculture of Balti—Game of Chaugan—Chakor hunting—Shigar valley—Journey towards Kashmir—Dras valley—Karbu—Dras fort—Maten—Cross pass into Kashmir—Baltal—Valley of Sind river—Sonamarg—Gagangir—Gond—Gangan—Ganderbal—Enter main valley of Kashmir—Town of Kashmir—Description of Kashmir—Lacustrine formation—Trap hills—Lake—Climate—Vegetation.
It was not till the 25th of February that the approach of spring was sufficiently decided to permit me to make a move with any chance of fair weather. On that day I started from Iskardo, with the intention of making eight or ten days' journey down the Indus in the direction of Rondu. The district of Rondu may be understood to comprise the whole of the narrow part of the Indus valley, from the western end of the Iskardo plain to the great bend of that river, where it assumes a southerly direction. It is only during the winter season that the route along the valley of the Indus is much frequented, as it is quite impracticable for horses, and so very bad even for travellers on foot, that the road over the passes towards Hasora is always preferred in summer. At the season of my journey I had no option, the passes being still covered with heavy snow.
Unfortunately for my objects, the inhabitants of Gilgit had since the beginning of winter been in a state of open insurrection, and had besieged the garrison placed by Gulab Singh in one of the forts of the valley. Attempts had been made by the Thannadar of Iskardo to send a force to their relief, but the garrison of that place was too weak to enable him to detach more than a very small portion of it; and the forced levies of Balti men, collected in all the districts of the country, had evidently no desire to fight against the more active inhabitants of Gilgit and the robber tribes of the higher valleys of Hunza and Nagyr. Large parties of fifty and a hundred were continually arriving during the winter at Iskardo, and were as soon as possible despatched towards the disturbed country; but the greater number of them, I was told, managed to desert, and to return to their villages, or to hiding-places elsewhere, long before the detachment arrived at the end of its journey.
Crossing the Indus in the ferry-boat, a little below the rock of Iskardo, my road lay along the north bank of the river, through extensive tracts of cultivation. There was much less snow on the surface of the fields in the village of Koardu, the first through which I passed on the north bank, than in the town of Iskardo, owing to the more favourable exposure. The villagers were busy sprinkling a thin layer of earth over the snow to hasten its melting. This village, which is about five miles distant from Iskardo, is backed by very high masses of clay conglomerate and clay, forming very irregular, often precipitous banks, resting on the ancient rocks behind. From Iskardo these beds are very conspicuous, but in the village itself only a very small portion can be seen at a time.
West of Koardu, a ridge of mica-slate, containing abundance of garnets, advances close to the river, which here runs on the northern side of the valley. The road up the valley skirts the base of this projecting spur, and then passes over level platforms for about four miles. The level tracts were still covered with snow, but in rocky places, and on all slopes facing the south, the ground was quite bare. Four miles from Koardu I passed the very large village of Kamar, the fields rising in terraces one behind another on a steeply sloping platform, which skirts the plain for nearly two miles. Behind the village, the same system of conglomerate and clay-beds, as at Koardu, rises in steep banks.
About a mile beyond Kamar, which is the last village on the north side of the Iskardo plain, the valley of the Indus contracts very suddenly, the mountains closing in upon the river. The beds of lacustrine clay extend without any diminution to the end of the open valley, and are covered, when close to the mountains, by numerous boulders of all sizes, many of which are of great dimensions. The fine clay at the termination of the open plain appears to underlie a great mass of boulder conglomerate, which is continued into the narrow part of the river valley.
Where the river passes from the open plain into the narrow ravine, the inclination of its bed seems increased, and the rapidity of its motion becomes much greater. This result is quite in accordance with what has been observed in the Nubra and Khapalu plains. Indeed, narrow valleys are so generally steeply sloping, and wide valleys so generally nearly level, that it can scarcely be doubted that the inclination of the surface is in some way connected with the width or amount of excavation of the valley.
For a mile or two beyond the end of the Iskardo plain, the mountains are sufficiently far apart to allow of the interposition of a narrow platform of conglomerate, over which the road runs. Soon, however, even this disappears, and thenceforward, as far as I went, the Indus runs through a narrow ravine of very uniform character. The mountains on both sides of the river are extremely steep, and, so far as I could judge at so early a season, almost uniformly rocky and precipitous. At distant intervals a small platform of alluvium is interposed between the cliffs and the river, but much more frequently precipices directly overhang the stream, or steep bare rocks, only not absolutely precipitous, rise from its margin. It is but seldom that the stony bed of the river or the alluvial platforms overhanging it, afford a level road for a few hundred yards at a time. In general the path continually ascends and descends over each successive ridge; the elevation to which it is required to ascend to find a practicable passage, varying from a few hundred to several thousand feet above the bottom of the valley. In at least eight or ten places between Iskardo and Rondu, the path ascends or descends by means of ladders placed against the face of a perpendicular wall of rock, or crosses fissures in the cliffs by planks laid horizontally over them. This road is therefore quite impracticable for beasts of burden or horses, and is never used except in winter, when no other route is open to the traveller.
As the road lies altogether on the north or right bank of the Indus, the elevation and appearance of the mountains on that side cannot well be seen. This range separates the Indus valley from that of Shigar, which is in no part of Rondu more than twenty-five miles distant, and is crossed in several places by passes at the head of the larger ravines. These passes being still blocked up with snow, I could not cross them, nor ascertain their elevation, which is perhaps nowhere less than fourteen or fifteen thousand feet, except at the very eastern extremity of the ridge.
From the higher parts of the road, where it attained an elevation of eight and nine thousand feet, the mountain ranges on the south of the Indus could be well seen. They were covered with snow from base to summit, and in general rose so very abruptly, that the nearer spurs completely concealed from view the main range, except when a more open valley than usual permitted the view to extend backwards. Occasionally very lofty peaks were seen, which appeared to attain a height of at least eighteen or twenty thousand feet; but, as the whole landscape was covered with snow, distances could not be estimated with any accuracy. As the ridge to the south of the Indus keeps very close to the river, it is probable that the highest summits seen in that direction were situated beyond the valley of Hasora.
The villages of Rondu are not numerous, and are of very small extent; still every available spot seems to be occupied by a small patch of cultivation. The platforms are generally high above the river. In the lower part of the district, where the lateral ravines are of greater length, they open out above the very steep slope, by which they debouche into the Indus, into gently sloping open valleys. The villages of Thawar and Murdu, being situated in these open valleys, are much more extensive than any of those close to the Indus. The fort of Rondu is on the left bank of the river, on a platform perhaps two hundred feet above its level, nearly opposite the end of the Thawar valley, and not far from the termination of a valley which descends from the southern mountains, along which there is a road across a pass to Hasora.
From Iskardo to Thawar, a large village in a lateral ravine on the north side of the Indus, almost opposite to the fort of Rondu, the road distance is about forty miles. As five days were employed in traversing this distance, the average day's journey was only eight miles; and yet, from the difficult nature of the road, all the marches appeared long, and were felt to be very fatiguing. A great part of the road being at an elevation much more considerable than that the Iskardo plain, I met with much snow on all the higher parts of the mountains. In the valley of the Indus thaw made rapid progress, and by the beginning of March, in favourable exposures, there was no snow below 8000 feet.
The progress of the thaw occasioned constant avalanches, the snow slipping from the steep sides of the ravines, and when once in motion, advancing with constantly increasing momentum till it reached the lowest level. All day long the mountains echoed with the sound of falling snow; the avalanches were not often visible, as they took place in the ravines, but now and then (where the ravines terminated in precipices) they were seen pouring in cataracts of snow over the face of the cliffs. In each large ravine which joined the Indus I found one of these gigantic avalanches, and was enabled to see that they were composed of a congeries of balls of snow, varying in diameter from one to six feet, and often containing fragments of rock in their centre. Many of these snow-streams were not less than forty or fifty feet thick. At the level of the Indus they were now very soft, and evidently thawing rapidly.
In many parts of Rondu are to be seen very distinct indications of the boulder conglomerate, by which the ravine was perhaps at one period entirely filled; though from the very steep slopes of the mountains in most places, there is not often a resting-place for it. The platforms on which the villages are built are all formed of this alluvium, and are often covered with transported blocks of vast size. Between Siri and Baicha I saw several which were not less than sixty feet in length. In the upper part of the valley of Thawar, which is more level than the ravines higher up the Indus, a great accumulation of clay and boulders is seen attaining a height of at least 8000 feet above the level of the sea, as it forms hills a thousand feet above the village, which is at least as much above the Indus.
The valley in which the village of Thawar is situated slopes gently towards the Indus till near its termination, when it descends extremely abruptly down a very steep inclined bank of boulders, which appears to block up the whole of the end of the valley. The slope of this steep bank was so great that it was only possible to descend by a very devious route. Between the lower part of the cultivation and the commencement of the steep slope, the valley was very irregular, and filled with heaps of boulders, forming long low hills. The appearance of the mass of debris in this valley was very remarkable, and had much the appearance of an old moraine deposited by a glacier, which had extended as far as the end of the present cultivation, and had shot forward the boulders by which it had been covered into the abyss below.
The Indus is crossed by a swing-bridge of willow twigs, which leads from the villages on the north bank to the fort of Rondu. From Thawar I descended to this bridge, in order to ascertain the boiling-point of water, so as to get an approximation to the elevation of the bed of the river. It is thrown across a remarkably contracted part of the river, where it flows between perpendicular rocks rising several hundred feet out of the water, and the path by which the bridge is reached from Thawar descends the scarped face of the precipice by a succession of ladders.
From the boiling-point of water I estimated the elevation of the bridge, which was more than a hundred feet above the river, at 6200 feet. This would indicate a fall of about 1000 feet since leaving Iskardo, or, as the river flows very tranquilly till it leaves the Iskardo plain, from the commencement of Rondu, a distance by the road of twenty-nine miles, but not, I should think, more than twenty along the course of the river, as the road winds very much in crossing ridges. This is equivalent to a fall of about fifty feet per mile, which, for a stream discharging so vast a volume of water, is very considerable indeed, but not more than is indicated by the general turbulent course of the river.
The villages of Rondu, though mostly small, have abundance of fruit-trees. The apricot is still the commonest of these; but there are also many fine walnuts, and plenty of vines climbing up the trees, and remarkable for the great size of their trunks. Willows are very common, and two kinds of poplar, and now and then there occurs a plane-tree of enormous girth and stature, which must, no doubt, afford a most welcome shade from the rays of the too-powerful sun of summer, the heat of which, in so deep and rocky a ravine, must be very oppressive. The willow and poplar had already begun to show signs of vitality, the flower-buds being almost ready to expand; the other trees seemed still quite inert.
All over the hills of Rondu the juniper[16] is rather common, and seemingly quite at home both on the higher ridges, and in the bottom of the ravine close to the river. It forms generally a low bush, but occasionally I saw small trees, and once, in a level tract close to the river and near a village, a considerable tree perhaps forty feet high. The young plants had made considerable shoots, and were covered with longish acicular patent leaves, very different from the short adpressed scaly leaves of the adult plant.
Rondu is remarkable for producing another Coniferous tree, indeed a true pine, namely, Pinus excelsa, which occurs in small groves in several places on the south side of the river, at elevations from eight to ten thousand feet above the sea. It was first observed opposite the village of Siri, but is more plentiful above the fort of Rondu. One or two trees occur close to the river, and on the north side, so that I was enabled to get specimens and ascertain the species. The occurrence of this tree must be considered to indicate a greater degree of humidity than exists in the upper parts of the Indus valley, so that Rondu is the place of transition between the Tibetan climate and that of the eastern Punjab, into which the Indus passes at its point of exit from the mountains.
The mountains of Rondu contain much granite, which occurs in great mass at the bridge opposite the fort. In this place the granite occupies the lower part of the ravine, close to the river, while the higher parts of the mountains are composed of gneiss or clay-slate, sometimes passing into sandstone, or of a highly crystalline magnesian rock. The granite consists chiefly of quartz and mica, the former, as well as the felspar, white, the mica black and highly crystalline. The stratified rocks are always highly metamorphic, and are shattered and dislocated by the intrusion of the granite to a very great extent.
Below Thawar and the fort of Rondu, the valley of the Indus continues extremely narrow and difficult, and ceases to be inhabited at the village and fortified post of Tok, at which place a few soldiers are stationed, to keep up the communication with Gilgit, and to give notice of any incursions from that side. Thence, as far as the mountain range which bounds the Gilgit valley on the east, the valley is said to be quite desert. The disturbed state of Gilgit had made me abandon my original intention of continuing my journey in that direction; I therefore made only one march to the westward of Thawar, and found the ravine, along which the river flowed, so barren and uninteresting, that I did not consider it necessary to visit Tok, but retraced my steps towards Iskardo, which I reached on the 11th of March.
I should have been glad to have had an opportunity of observing the nature of the vegetation of the valley of Rondu, but the season of the year was unfortunately not favourable for that purpose. The cultivated plants were not different from those of Iskardo, and much of the shrubby vegetation was the same as that common higher up the Indus. An ash, of which the flowers were just expanded, but which was still quite leafless, appeared a novelty; but it was probably the same species which I had already collected in Kunawar and Piti. The only subtropical plants of which I saw any traces, were Linaria ramosissima, a shrubby Plectranthus, now leafless, but which I guessed to be P. rugosus, and some withered stems of tall reedy grasses, species of Saccharum and Erianthus. In summer, no doubt, many more would have occurred, and a complete list of the plants of Rondu would be of very great interest, as illustrative of the connection between the alpine flora of Ladak, which passes into that of Siberia, and the vegetation of the mountains of Affghanistan, the plants of which are in a great measure the same as those of Persia and Asia Minor. There is also a transition through this country, down the valley of the Indus, to a third flora, that of the hot dry plains of the Punjab and of Sind, which extends with little variation along the littoral districts of Beluchistan and Persia, into Arabia and Egypt.
On my return to Iskardo, I found the plain almost free from snow, a little only remaining on banks facing the north. The mountains on the south side of the valley were, however, still snow-clad to the very base, and the fruit-trees had scarcely begun to show any signs of vegetation. Along the watercourses there was more appearance of spring; a little gentian and Hutchinsia were already in flower, and most of the spring plants had begun to grow rapidly.
The return of spring set the whole population of the district to work in their fields; and both in Rondu and in the neighbourhood of Iskardo, I had an opportunity of seeing the mode in which the processes of agriculture are carried on. As soon as the ground is clear of snow, the manure, which has been accumulated during the preceding year, consisting of the contents of the cowhouse and stable, mixed with every sort of refuse, is carried in small baskets to the fields, on which it is deposited in small heaps. It is then spread uniformly over the surface by hand. Occasionally the field has had a previous ploughing, but it is more usually just in the state in which it had been left after the harvesting of the previous crop.
After the manure has been spread, it is ploughed into the land. The plough is usually drawn by a pair of bullocks, and is formed entirely of wood, the front part being blunted and hollow. The ploughshare, a sharp and hard piece of wood, is passed through the hollow, beyond which it projects several inches. This moveable piece of wood does the principal work, and is easily replaced when it has sustained injury. After the ploughing, the seed is sown broadcast, and the field is then harrowed. The harrow is a frame-work of wood, weighted with stones, but without spikes; or a heavy board, weighted; or occasionally only a thorny bush, with several large stones laid upon it. It is generally drawn by one man, who assists its action by breaking with his feet the clods which would otherwise be too bulky to be crushed by it. The harrowing is repeated till the soil is reduced to a sufficient fineness, an operation which is much facilitated by the dryness of the atmosphere. The field is then laid out into small square beds, for convenience of irrigation, and water is supplied to it at intervals throughout the summer.
About the middle of March, an assembly of all the principal inhabitants of the district took place at Iskardo, on some occasion of ceremony or festivity, the nature of which I have forgotten. I was thus fortunate enough to be a witness of the national game of the Chaugan, which is derived from Persia, and has been described by Mr. Vigne as hockey on horseback, a definition so exact, as to render a further detail unnecessary. Large quadrangular enclosed meadows for this game may be seen in all the larger villages of Balti, often surrounded by rows of beautiful willow and poplar trees.
About the same time, I was invited by the Thannadar of Iskardo to be present at a hunting party, which he had arranged for the capture of the chakor, or painted partridge, by surrounding a spot of ground, in which these birds are numerous, with a ring of men, who, approaching from all directions, gradually form a dense circle of perhaps a hundred yards in diameter. When the partridges are disturbed by a horseman in this enclosure, they naturally fly towards the living wall by which they are surrounded. Loud shouts, and the beating of drums and waving of caps and cloaks, turn them back, and they are driven from side to side, till at last, exhausted with fatigue, and stupid from the noise and confusion, they sink to the ground, and allow themselves to be caught by hand. The scene was a very striking one. The spot selected was a deep dell, full of rocks, but without trees. The sport, however, did not seem so successful as usual, six or eight birds only being captured. The chakor is an extremely common bird in all parts of the valley of the Indus, and indeed throughout Tibet. In winter, when the hills are covered with snow, they are to be found in great numbers close to the river, even in the immediate neighbourhood of the villages; and in general, when approached, they lie very close among the crevices of the stones.
Before finally leaving Iskardo, I devoted three days to a visit to the valley of Shigar, which is watered by a very large tributary which joins the Indus opposite the rock of Iskardo. The terminal ridges of the mountain ranges on both sides of the Shigar river, advance close to the centre of the valley where the stream enters the Indus. The road to Shigar from Iskardo, therefore, crosses low hills of dark schistose rocks, winding among dry valleys which are occupied by great masses of alluvium. A coarse sandstone, horizontally stratified, formed beds of fifty feet thick, alternating with and capped by beds of clay conglomerate containing numerous angular fragments. The sandstone was very similar to that which I had previously seen on the top of the rock of Iskardo, and rested upon thinner strata of a bluish-grey indurated clay, quite non-fossiliferous, and different in appearance from any deposit which I had seen in Tibet. These lacustrine strata occupied both sides of the valley along which the road lay. From the summit of the low range of hills, the road descended rapidly to the level of the cultivation of the Shigar plain. The Shigar river flows through a wide gravelly channel in many branches; and low, grassy, and swampy tracts skirt the stream. Fifty feet above these are the platforms of alluvium, which extend along the left bank of the river uninterruptedly for five or six miles, and vary in width from a quarter of a mile to a mile or more. They are almost entirely covered with arable land, formed into terraces which rise gradually one above another, and a succession of small villages are scattered among the fields. Numerous little streams descend from the mountains, and irrigation canals ramify in every direction. Ploughing was the universal occupation of the villagers; and the yellow flowers of Tussilago Farfara were everywhere seen expanding on the clayey banks of the rivulets.
The fort of Shigar is close to the mountains on the east side of the valley, where a considerable stream makes its exit from them. By this stream, Mr. Vigne ascended to a pass on the high range to the eastward, and descended upon the Shayuk at the village of Braghar. Where it terminates in the Shigar plain, this valley is for a few hundred yards very narrow; but a little above its entrance it widens considerably, and the flanks of the mountains are covered with a great accumulation of the alluvial deposits, clinging to the face of the rocks on both sides, certainly as high as a thousand feet above the stream. The beds were sometimes, but rarely, stratified, and were very variable in appearance. Coarse conglomerates, at one time with angular boulders, at others, with rounded stones, alternated with coarse and fine sand and finely laminated clays. No fossils of any kind were observed.
In summer, the discharge of the Shigar river, which descends from the snowy masses of the Muztagh or Kouen-lun, must be immense, as prodigious glaciers descend very low among the valleys of its different branches. Up one of the streams a practicable road exists towards Yarkand over an enormous glacier. I met with one or two people at Iskardo who had traversed it; but it is now not at all frequented, being very unsafe, in consequence of the marauding propensities of the wild Mahommedan tribes who inhabited the Hunza valley. It was described to me as an exceedingly difficult road, lying for several days over the surface of the glacier.
On the 31st of March, I left Iskardo for the last time. It was expected that the pass between Dras and Kashmir would be easily accessible by the time I should reach it. My road as far as Dras was the same as that along which I had twice travelled in December, and, except from the indications of returning spring, was much the same as it had then been. The crops of wheat and barley in the fields in the Iskardo plain were an inch or two high, the buds of the apricot were just beginning to swell, and the willows had almost expanded their flowers.
At Gol and Nar, where the valley is narrow and the heat therefore more concentrated, the corn was considerably further advanced, and in some of the apricot flowers the petals had begun to expand. Wild flowers had also begun to vegetate: a violet was in flower on the banks of streamlets, as well as a Primula and an Androsace. Above Parkuta, again, the season was more backward. Large snow-banks, which had descended in avalanches, still remained in all the larger furrows on the mountain-sides. The river had been discoloured since the day I left Iskardo, and on the 4th of April, the day I reached Kartash, it became very much so, and was said to be rising rapidly.
On the 6th of April, I entered the Dras valley, and encamped at Ulding Thung, where there were still a few patches of snow. On the 7th, I marched to Hardas, ten miles. Here, at about 9000 feet, spring had scarcely commenced. The fruit-trees showed no signs of vitality; and though the fields had been ploughed, the grain had not yet begun to vegetate. The valley of the Dras river begins to expand at the village of Bilergu, four or five miles above Ulding. As soon as there is enough of level space, beds of conglomerate, and more rarely of fine clay, appear along the river. Round the village of Bilergu, the poplars, willows, and apricots are as numerous as in the valley of the Indus; but beyond it, the inclination of the valley is considerable, and at Hardas there were but few trees. Above Bilergu the quantity of snow increased considerably, and the contrast between the sides of the valley was very striking: at Hardas, the shady slope was quite white, while that facing the south had only a few patches of snow.
On the 8th of April, I marched to Karbu, eight miles. As I advanced, I found much more snow; but the road was in general free, except in the ravines where snow-slips had descended. On the latter part of the day, these were universal in all the ravines, and were frequently of great depth, and so soft as to be difficult to cross: on the least deviation from the beaten path, I sank to the middle at every step. These avalanches were cut off abruptly by the river, forming cliffs of snow fifteen or twenty feet high, in which the structure and development of the mass by successive slips, alternating with falls of snow, could be distinctly made out. One or two of them still crossed the river, which flowed below the bridge of ice. Three miles below Karbu, the granite, which had been the rock ever since entering Dras, was replaced by a peculiar slate, apparently magnesian, and perhaps hornblende slate, passing into or containing beds of a coarse sandstone.
At Karbu, where I was detained a day, the Thannadar not having expected me so soon, and my porters not being ready, the weather was very unsettled, and in the evening, and during the nights of the 8th and 9th of April, there was a good deal of rain, especially on the 9th. The wind during the storm was very irregular in direction. The ground was still covered to the depth of more than a foot with snow. The morning of the 10th was gloomy, but as the day advanced the clouds broke, and the afternoon was bright and beautiful, with a gentle air down the valley.