A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



dangling over the torrent. However, we all 

 arrived safely, and encamped a little below 

 Yogma Hanoo. The poor villagers were in a 

 dreadful state, two houses and three men had been 

 washed away, and where there had been fertile 

 fields when Saibra had come up only a week 

 previously there was now nothing to be seen but 

 a wilderness of mud and stones. I promised the 

 Gopa or head man that I would report his case 

 on reaching Leh, in the hopes that some of the 

 taxation of the district might be remitted for this 

 year. Many Ladakhis, who had been waiting to 

 cross the stream for some days, took advantage of 

 our bridge to do so. 



Below Yogma Hanoo the valley becomes narrow 

 and rocky, with magnificent precipices, but is rather 

 gloomy and shut-in, and we had some difficulty in 

 climbing the steep rocky " parris," and, in places, 

 in wading the stream, the road having been almost 

 completely demolished by the floods. On the 

 morning of the i5th of July we reached the mouth 

 of the nalah, and came out into the Indus Valley, 

 for which I was not sorry. From this point down 

 to a point opposite Parkutta, where I had struck 

 the road on the opposite bank when on my way to 

 Baltistan, the gorges of the Indus are tremendous 

 and almost impracticable, though they are traversed 

 on rare occasions. Near this spot Babu Lai, to 

 whom I had given a butterfly net, with instructions 

 to catch all that he might see (an occupation that 



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