326 SPORT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF KASHMIR ch. xviii 



hour afterwards. It was a late arrival in camp, but the 

 march had been a long one (22 miles on the map, and 

 about 27 in reality), and every one was glad to have got 

 on so far. 



Our course all the next day was up the Rimdi valley, 

 than which a more uninteresting journey it would be hard 

 to imagine. Where we entered the valley the river was 

 dry, but about half-way up water once more appeared. 



This habit which many of the Ladak rivers have, of 

 flowing down a certain distance from their source and 

 then drying up, is curious, but not altogether unnatural. 

 In most cases where it occurs the spring is small, the 

 nala into which it flows a long one, and no tributaries join 

 it. The soil is more or less sandy, and evaporation 

 assists to reduce the stream. It is not surprising, there- 

 fore, that it should disappear. 



We had breakfast in a small rocky nala, where we had 

 breakfasted on the 20th of August, and let the yaks, as 

 usual, pass us. Near this I took a photograph of the 

 gorge, which is typical of the desolation which character- 

 ises the Changchenmo valley. After a couple of hours 

 or so we went on, the path getting worse and worse as we 

 neared Rimdi. Towards the end it became nothing more 

 than a track, made in the loose shale and slate that formed 

 the hillside by animals that had passed over before. The 

 stuff, which was simf)ly debris from the mountains above, 

 and formed a single steep slope from the summit of the 

 ridge to the water at the bottom of the nala, was lying at 

 the angle of incidence, and the ponies sank into it often 

 above the fetlocks. The apology for a path led along the 

 side, a good way above the stream, and a false step 



