A SUMMER IN HIGH ASIA. 



sions. This tuft was generally some six or eight 

 inches in diameter, and rose at the centre, perhaps 

 some four inches from the ground ; the fibres were 

 so closely interlaced that it was difficult to break 

 one of these tufts in half, and they were covered 

 with pretty little starlike white blossoms. These 

 tufts seem to be the favourite resort of a small 

 animal like a tail-less rat, some eight inches in 

 length, which seems to burrow into, and live 

 beneath, them. I caught one of these little beasts, 

 and identified it as Lagomys Ladakensis (the 

 Ladakh Pika, Sterndale). After leaving the high 

 ground we crossed a valley and ascended the other 

 side, and on this slope we encountered ground such 

 as I never saw, at any rate to the same extent, 

 anywhere else, though I fancy that it must be in a 

 similar soil to this that the disappearing rivers, that 

 I so frequently noticed in Baltistan, lose themselves. 

 (In that country it was not unusual to see a con- 

 siderable stream vanish from sight in the loose 

 detritus, sometimes to reappear equally suddenly 

 some way farther on, but not infrequently to be no 

 more seen.) To look at, this ground presented the 

 appearance of the ordinary shale slope, but for some 

 miles it was in consistency like a quicksand, into 

 which the ponies sank up to their hocks, while the 

 foot-passengers fared but little better ; a state of 

 things which was evidently caused by the rapidly- 

 melting snow-fields immediately above the loose 

 shale. After struggling through this slough of 



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