34 Captain Gerard's Account of a Survey 



phapur, and Siberian barley. The rocks in the vicinity are 

 granite, gneiss, and mica. 



Having understood that Chinese were at a short distance 

 in front to stop them, Messrs Gerard did not move their 

 baggage* but advanced to meet the opposite party. They 

 crossed two rivulets, near which they saw the black currant 

 in the highest perfection, and larger than any which they had 

 hitherto met with. They found fifty Tartars awaiting their 

 arrival a mile S. W. of Churet, the first Chinese village. Not 

 being able to prevail on them to allow of their proceeding, 

 they returned to Changrezhing. 



In the afternoon they visited the confluence of the Spiti 

 with the Zangcham or Pdrdti river, which comes from the 

 N.E. The last is the larger river, being 98 feet broad ; the 

 Spiti (from the N. W.) but 72 feet; the former rushing with 

 great fury and noise, the latter flowing with a more gentle 

 current. The elevation was found to be 10,200 feet above 

 the sea. 



A mile from Changrezhing, proceeding towards the river, 

 they got among the crags and water-worn passages, whence it 

 was no easy matter to extricate themselves. Captain G. re- 

 marks, that they were evidently on the former bank of the 

 river : the whole bank was a concreted rubble, hardened by 

 the air on the retiring of the waters. After descending a se- 

 ries of difficult steps or ledges, each seeming to have once been 

 the bank of the river, they arrived at its bed. The distance 

 from Changrezhing was three miles and a half. 



They proceeded by the Chongbd pass (11,900 feet above 

 the sea,) and crossing the Spiti by a good bridge of three fir 

 trees planked over, to Sh'idlkhar, where there is a fort in a 

 commanding situation, on the brink of the channel. The walls 

 are of loose stones and unburnt bricks, with houses all around 

 the inside. It is in the parallel of 32° N. lat. The river is 

 here 10,000 feet above the sea. The climate resembles that 

 of Chango. The grain crops are the same ; and apricots are 

 plentiful, and of very superior flavour. 



Lari, the first village in Spiti, a dependency of Lddak, is 

 distant about eleven miles to the N.W. Messrs Gerard wish- 

 ed to visit it, but the Spiti intervened, and was then unford- 



