80 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



of Sirinagur (Carl von Hiigel, Kaschmir, bd. ii. s. 196), is not 

 situated, as is often supposed, upon the ridge of the Himalaya, but 

 is a true cauldron-shaped valley (Kesselthal, Caldera) on the 

 southern declivity of those mountains. On the south-west, where 

 the rampart-like elevation of the Pir Panjal separates it from the Pun- 

 jaub, the snow- covered summits are crowned, according to Vigne, 

 with formations of basalt and amygdaloid. The latter formation 

 has received from the natives the characteristic name of " schischak 

 deyu," marked by the devil's small-pox. (Vigne, Travels in Kash- 

 meer, 1842, vol. i. pp. 237-293.) The beauty of its vegetation has 

 from the earliest times been very differently described, according as 

 the visitor came from the rich and luxuriant vegetation of India, or 

 from the northern regions of Turkestan, Samarcand, and Ferghana. 

 It is also only very recently that clearer views have been obtained 

 respecting the elevation of Thibet; the level of the plateau having 

 long been most uncritically confounded with the summits which rise 

 from it. Thibet occupies the interval between the two great chains 

 of the Himalaya and the Kuen-liin, forming the raised ground of 

 the valley between them. It is divided from east to west, both by 

 the natives and by Chinese geographers, into three portions. Upper 

 Thibet, with its capital city H'lassa, probably 1500 toises (9590 

 English feet) above the level of the sea; Middle Thibet, with the 

 town of Leh or Ladak (1563 toises, or 9995 English feet); and 

 Little Thibet, or Baltistan, called the Thibet of Apricots, (Sari 

 Boutan,) in which are situated Iskardo (985 toises, or 6300 English 

 feet), Grilgit, and south of Iskardo but on the left bank of the Indus, 

 the plateau of Deotsuh, measured by Vigne, and found to be 1873 

 toises, or 11,977 English feet. On examining all the notices that 

 we possess respecting the three Thibets, (and which will have re- 

 ceived in the present year a rich augmentation by the boundary 

 expedition under the auspices of the governor-general, Lord Dal- 

 housie,) we soon become convinced that the region between the 

 Himalaya and the Kuen-liin is no unbroken plain or table land, but 

 that it is intersected by mountain groups, undoubtedly belonging to 

 wholly distinct systems of elevation. There are, properly speaking, 

 very few plains; the most considerable are those between Gertop, 

 Daba ; Schang-thung (Shepherd's Plain), the native country of the 



