IV OASES AMONGST GRANITE CRAGS 51 



is the same. Where a stream can be tapped to supply 

 irrigation there we find a village. Where such streams 

 are not, or cannot be tapped, we have rocks and granite 

 dust. Very charming and peaceful these villages looked. 

 After walking for miles and miles without seeing a green 

 thing of any kind, nothing but terra-cotta crags and sand 

 in all directions, it was a great relief, on turning a corner, 

 to see trees and fields and houses forming an oasis in 

 the dreary waste. 



At Hardas, and for several marches beyond, the 

 fields had only been just sown, and the fruit-trees were 

 not in bud even. But as we descended, and the climate 

 became more genial, we found in each village we came 

 to spring further advanced. In the earlier ones the 

 apricots were breaking into flower, and the corn was just 

 showing itself above the ground. Further on the trees 

 were in full flower and the corn a foot high, till on reach- 

 ing Sarsal in the Haramosh district, I found the mul- 

 berries beginning to ripen, the apricot fruit formed, and 

 the corn well up to the knee. 



A couple of miles before reaching Mashung, the 

 stream formed by the combined Dras and Soru rivers 

 falls into the Indus, the waters of which, instead of being 

 clear as those of the Dras river had been, were a sort of 

 turbid green, with melting snow and the ddbris brought 

 down by avalanches. My tent was pitched on the flat 

 terrace of an unsown field, high above the Indus. The 

 evening was damp and drizzly, and after looking over 

 and oiling my guns, I was glad to turn in early. 



The next morning I was up at 3.15 a.m., and left in 

 the dark. We stopped at Tarkutta to change coolies, 



