28 Captain Gerard's Account of a Survey 



be very much confused with every object at which she looked. 

 Neither was she yet able, without considerable difficulty and 

 numerous fruitless trials, to direct her eye to an object; so 

 that when she attempted to look at any thing, she turned her 

 head in various directions, until her eye caught the object of 

 which it was in search. She still entertained however the 

 same hope which she expressed soon after the operation, that 

 when she got home her knowledge of external things would 

 be more accurate and intelligible, and that when she came to 

 look at those objects which had been so long familiar to her 

 touch, the confusion which the multiplicity of external objects 

 now caused, would in a great measure subside. 



Art. VI. — Account of a Survey of the Valley of the Setlej 

 River , in the Himalaya Mountains. From the Journal of 

 Captain Alexander Gerard, Surveyor to the Board of 

 Commissioners. (Concluded from Vol. V. p. 288.) 



Not being able to prevail upon the Tartars to allow them 

 to proceed a step further, the travellers unwillingly began their 

 return (27th of July.) They again traversed the Keubrang 

 pass, and repeated their barometric measurement of it with 

 the same result; halted at Rishi Talam, 15,200 feet high, 

 two miles from their former stage at Zongchin, and proceeded 

 by the Gangtang pass to Rishi Irpu, on the H6ch6 river. 



At the limit of vegetation (16,600 feet above the sea) it 

 commenced snowing, and they were involved in a dense haze : 

 the guides missed their way, knew not how to proceed, and 

 became alarmed. They halted, therefore, for a while ; and, 

 the clouds clearing away for an instant, Messrs Gerard got 

 sight of a shaghar, or pile of stones, the bearing of which they 

 took ; and being surrounded by mist, steered towards it bv a 

 pocket compass. The ascent was steep, and they often scram- 

 bled over sharp-pointed rocks. They proceeded a mile and a 

 half, guided by the compass; and the lower clouds clearing 

 away, they found themselves within half a mile of the shaghar. 

 The summit of the pass was measured barometrically, 18,295 

 feet above the sea. 



