352 Mr. H, T, Colebrooke's Remarks on the Setlej River. 



season, and leaves a perpendicular wall of eighty to a hundred feet in depth. 

 The mountains on the other side were less steep, and the snow lies in 

 continuous fields. 



The travellers proceeded over heaps of loose stones, snow, and slush, at 

 the point of congelation. They passed by several deep blue lakes, with 

 their banks of frozen snow : these are always to be dreaded ; and they 

 made a circuit by a seemingly more arduous road, to avoid the danger. 

 Two avalanches descended opposite to them : one of rock, which spent its 

 force in distance, the smaller fragments just reaching them ; the other of 

 snow, but arrested by intervening rocks. 



The rocks in the vicinity of K'iukuche, an enclosure for cattle, on the banks 

 of the Nangalti (where they encamped, at an elevation of 12,400 feet, as 

 indicated by the barometer), were granite, and fine-grained mica slate. 



Four considerable streams were forded, which rise at the back of the 

 Cailds, and joining the Nangalti, at length mingle their waters with the 

 Tidung river. 



After fording the Nangalti, thyme, and further on juniper, mint, sage, 

 and a variety of odoriferous plants, were met with. At JCiu/ciicfie there 

 were a few animals of the cross-breed, between the yak (bos grunniens) 

 and common cow. 



I On either side, for a few hundred yards, there is a grassy slope, with 

 juniper and other bushes ; and just above it, the dell is inbound by craggy 

 cliffs of horrid forms. A little further down, the glen becomes more con- 

 tracted in breadth, and the mountains present mural faces of rock, which 

 continue for two miles, to the union of the Nangalti with the Tidung. 



Few of the loaded people arrived the same day; two of them stopped 

 all night at the top of the pass, and tore up their blankets to protect their 

 feet. Fortunately it did not snow, and clouds prevented severe frost, or 

 they certainly would not have survived the night. People were despatched 

 to their assistance ; and all were up, soon after noon, next day. 



Recommencing their journey, the travellers followed the course of the 

 Nangalti river, to its junction with the Tidung, and explored the valley 

 of this last-mentioned river, ascending to the viW&ge of Charang (12,000 

 feet), amidst mountains 18,000 feet high; and proceeding thence to 

 Thangi, and afterwards to the confluence of the same river with the Setkj. 

 The principal branch, retaining the name of Tidung, flows from the E.S.E., 

 having its source in Chinese Tartary. 



