Western Himalaya and Tibet Part 16

[Sidenote: VALLEY OF DRAS.

_December, 1847._]

From the same ridge, the view up the Dras valley was very remarkable.

The river of that name, which formed many deep pools and was partially frozen, ran at the bottom of a deep gorge. On the right bank opposite to where I stood, a sheer precipice rose nearly to a level with my eye. Between the ridge on which I stood and the next in succession up the Dras valley, an open and shallow valley, everywhere strewed with enormous blocks of granite, sloped gently till it approached the brink of the almost perpendicular cliffs which overhang the Dras river.

Crossing this open valley, and the low spur beyond it, I encamped at a small village called Ulding Thung, situated at the point of junction of the Dras river, with a considerable tributary descending from the west.

This little village occupies the gentle slope of a hill-side, but I encamped at the lowest part of it, which was a small level plain surrounded by a number of giant boulders, resting on the upper edge of a very steep slope, and evidently, I think, of glacial origin. They were quite angular, and not less than from twenty to thirty feet in length.

On the slope of the hill above my encampment at Ulding, the lacustrine clay formation again occurred in great quant.i.ty. It was a very fine impalpable clay, without fossils, and was here (as is not uncommon elsewhere) dug out by the inhabitants for the purpose of extracting its salt, which is obtained in a state of brine by simply was.h.i.+ng the clay with water. The elevation of this clay formation was probably a good deal more than 8500 feet, but not greater than that of many of the hills and patches of similar deposit around Tarkata in the valley of the Indus.

At daybreak on the morning of the 18th of December I found that between three and four inches of snow had fallen during the night. It had ceased snowing at that time; and during the day, which was stormy and often very cloudy, no more fell. There was a good deal of thaw during the day, and towards evening the snow, except in sheltered spots, was nearly melted. My day's journey was about ten miles, to the village of Hardas, on the left bank of the Dras river; pa.s.sing about two miles before the end of the march the river of Kargyl or Pashkyum, a very large stream which descends from the south-east. During the earlier part of this day, the road was extremely bad. It descended from Ulding abruptly to the level of the Dras river, to cross at its point of junction a large tributary whose source is in the eastern slopes of Deotsu. A succession of steep ascents and descents followed for four or five miles, throughout which distance the ravine through which the river ran was narrow and precipitous and quite without villages. Further up, the valley widened a little, the mountains rose less steeply, and left narrow strips of level ground along the margin of the stream.

[Sidenote: SNOW STORM.

_December, 1847._]

Very early on the morning of the 11th of December, it began again to snow, and continued with little intermission throughout the day. I marched ten miles to Karbu, crossing the river three miles above Hardas, and keeping on the right bank during the remainder of the day.

I could see that the valley was wider than the day before, but the incessant snow made the appearance of the country undistinguishable.

The margins of the stream were occasionally fringed with bushes of poplar and willow. Karbu is a village high up a steep lateral valley, with scattered groves of juniper on the sides of the hills above the cultivation. By evening the depth of snow was about fifteen inches.

On the 12th of December, after marching five miles through a heavy fall of snow to the village of Tashgang, crossing the river by a wooden bridge close to the village, a violent storm of wind and snow-drift, blowing directly down the valley, compelled me to halt for the night. The snow-storm continued till about eight P.M., when the weather cleared, and the night was clear and starlight. Next morning, the weather continuing fine, I was able to proceed to Dras. The depth of snow had increased to about two feet; and the labour of progressing through this depth of untrodden snow was much increased by the shortness of the steps of the porters, treading exactly after one another, so as to form pits in the snow, not more than a foot apart, and alternately on the right and left.

[Sidenote: DRAS.

_December, 1847._]

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 pa.s.s 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 acc.u.mulated, as I was told, on the pa.s.s to a depth which quite precluded all possibility of a pa.s.sage for many days to come.

Notwithstanding all these a.s.surances, I should certainly have tried to advance at least as far as Maten, had I not found at Dras one of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of Kargyl, who had returned the day before from that place, after attempting in the morning to advance towards the pa.s.s, which is ten miles further on, and being stopped by finding the snow ten and twelve feet deep, and quite soft. After the a.s.surances of this traveller, I should not have been justified in taking so many porters across the pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.s 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 f.a.ggots 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.

[Sidenote: RETURN TOWARDS ISKARDO.

_December, 1847._]

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.

[Sidenote: FROZEN WATERFALLS.

_December, 1847._]

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 sh.e.l.l 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.

[Sidenote: ROPE BRIDGES.

_December, 1847._]

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 gra.s.s or _Eriophorum_) in the Western Himalaya; and in Tibet, where even that material is not available, willow twigs are employed as a subst.i.tute.

In many parts of the Indus valley, even in the most rugged and desolate spots, I noticed, occasionally, trees of the _Elaeagnus_ and of apricot, growing in rocky places along the river, where it was very evident that they had never been planted. The _Elaeagnus_ 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.

[Sidenote: WINTER AT ISKARDO.

_December, 1847._]

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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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 19, and that at two P.M. 33. The mean temperature during the period from the 28th of December to the 31st of January was 27, and from the 1st to the 24th of February 25. The increase of cold was princ.i.p.ally 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 h.o.a.r-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 quant.i.ties 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 acc.u.mulated 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 a.s.sistance I succeeded in replenis.h.i.+ng 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 _Elaeagnus_, 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 -- s.h.i.+gar valley -- Journey towards Kashmir -- Dras valley -- Karbu -- Dras fort -- Maten -- Cross pa.s.s 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 a.s.sumes 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 pa.s.ses towards Hasora is always preferred in summer. At the season of my journey I had no option, the pa.s.ses being still covered with heavy snow.

[Sidenote: KOARDU.

_February, 1848._]

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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.ses 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.

[Sidenote: KAMAR.

_February, 1848._]

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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed 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.