664 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
of elevation was not sufficiently rapid to produce any marked 
difference either in the nature or in the state of advancement of 
the vegetation, and that the country before me was quite unin- 
habited, and still more difficult than that I had passed through, 
I gave up the attempt to proceed further, and returned to Iskardoh. 
The district through which I made these six days journey is called 
Rondee. I have some difficulty in finding terms to describe to 
you the extremely barren and rocky nature of its mountains. It 
is quite impracticable for horses or cattle of any kind, ladders ten 
or fifteen feet in height occurring in many parts of the road, as 
the only means of ascending and descending the face of the rocks. 
There are a good many villages which in appearance do not differ 
from those near Iskardoh ; the grounds are all terraced, and fruit 
trees (principally apricots) abound: Beyond the villages all is 
rock and stone. The melting snow had revived the patches of 
moss which abound in the crevices of the rocks, and swelled them 
like sponges, but I found very few which produced fructification. 
The fruit trees were not as yet in flower, so that you will not expect 
me to give you any detailed account of the vegetation. Indeed 
the only fact of interest which I observed was the occurrence of 
small woods of Pinus excelsa on the mountains on the south side 
of the Indus, in two or threetplaces throughout Rondee, at eleva- 
tions of 8 to 10,000 feet. I ascertained the species by means of 
a single tree on the bank of the river, which I was assured was 
the same species as those higher up. Pinus excelsa is, I believe, 
generally the coniferous tree which, excluding Junipers, rise 
highest ; so from analogy it might perhaps have been concluded 
a priori, that it would occur furthest north. A species of Fraz- 
nus (not seen higher up) was common near the river, just coming 
into flower,—the same species, as far as I could ascertain, which 
occurs also in Kanawar and Kamaon. Though the snow had 
only just disappeared, several ferns were in full fructification,— 
one of them, a very beautiful and delicate Adiantum, quite new 
tome. In my six days’ journey, the bed of the river sunk about 
1,000 feet, much too small a change to produce any alteration in 
the species of plants. One plant of the plains, however, or rather 
