100 SCIENTIFIC MISSION 
several kinds of Gentian, two of Pedicularis, a very small Thalic- 
trum, a Parnassia, a Juncus, and a good many Carices and 
Grasses; while in drier places, Dracocephalum heterophyllum, 
(Benth.) two Corydales, a pretty Phaca, several Chenopodiacee and 
Artemisiæ were common. 
The Sanak Pass offered much more interest, botanically speaking, 
than the Parang. The ascent was easier, and the mountains, 
covered with granite and boulders, permitted a greater amount of 
vegetation than could be detected among the loose angular stones 
and sharp slopes of the Parang. For a —" way we 
traced upwards a small stream, whose turfy banks presented many 
pretty alpine plants, among which I may mention a Suxifrage, 
an entire-leaved Ranunculus, a Delphinium, several Saussureæ, à 
Pedicularis, Thalictrum, Parnassia, several Cherlerie or Stellaria, 
&c., &c. At the very top, I noticed a level gravelly spot, the — 
elevation being certainly upwards of 18,000 feet, where grew - 
two species of Crucifere, and only 200 feet lower down, were 
many other plants. The road was quite free from snow, which 
covered the northern exposure of the mountains to our right. 
One long march from the northern face of the Sanak brought us 
to Haulé, a monastery of Buddhist Lamas, built on a hill, to the 
north of a very extensive and perfectly flat salt-plain, elevated 
14,000 feet, and traversed by two sluggish streams, full of fish: —— 
these rivers unite close to Haulé, and, taking a northerly course —— 
through an open valley, they fall into the Indus. We followed - 
for nearly twenty miles the course of the stream: its banks and 
the plain were very saline, the quantity of salt obviously increasing 
as we proceeded; a fact, attested both by the eye, and by the 
greater predominance of Chenopodiacee, of which tribe I found 
four species that I had not seen before. We left the Haulé — x 
river a few miles before it fell into the Indus, but only to traverse 
a low range of hills, after which we regained it, some miles lower 
than the junction. At the spot where we struck the Indus, it was — 
flowing sluggishly, at one and a half to two miles an hour, overa —— 
ets muddy bed, in the centre of a salt-plain. Its banks were singu- 
= | larly barren : during the twenty-five miles for which we opes : 
