98 SCIENTIFIC MISSION 
on the 14th, where we halted two days, and started again on the 
17th for the Indus, pursuing the course of that stream for two 
days, in a direction rather north of the west, when we turned upa 
ravine to the left, and reached this place yesterday. Here we spend 
a day, partly to make magnetic observations, and also to examine 
the Sulphur and Borax and hot springs which occur at this place. 
So much for a general sketch of our route since my last: a 
very few words will suffice to convey an idea of the nature and 
appearance of the country. Since the 5th we have not been below 
13,800 feet, and almost always much higher. The country con- 
tinues extremely hilly, though interspersed with numerous open 
plains, either perfectly flat, or with a gentle slope, and sometimes 
of considerable extent. The sloping plains are strewed with gravel 
and fragments of rock, the flat ones covered with saline efflorescence, 
and evidently seeming to have been the beds of lakes. Nothing can 
well be more barren than the mountains and gravelly plains; but 
among the rocky spots some interesting plants may be picked up. 
The principal vegetation is, however, confined to the streams, whose 
banks are often marshy and covered with short turf, interspersed 
with some remarkable species. The brushwood of the Piti river con- 
sists of Roses, Willows, Tamarisk, and Hippophie. I had not met 
with the two former, since leaving the Parang Pass ; and the Hippo- 
pháe which grows on that Pass is different from that of Piti. 
Tamarisk prevails abundantly at an elevation of 14,500 feet; and 
the Caragana versicolor, which affords the principal fuel of the 
. inhabitants in these desolate regions, grows more luxuriantly than 
at Kunawur and Piti ; though I have, as yet, found only one species 
of the genus. The most frequent productions of this tract are a 
Crucifera, with large fleshy cuneate leaves, which is new, unless 
Jacquemont discovered it, an Artemisia? with bright yellow 
flowers, and an Atropa, or nearly-allied plant. 
We crossed the Parang Pass on the 8th Sept., being the fourth 
day after quitting the Piti river, and encamped at the height of 
about 17,000 feet. The mountains, over which we took our way, 
were so many masses of fragments of loose stones, and it was  - 
therefore difficult to ascertain the exact height to which plants — 
