156 A MOUNTAIN-TARN. 



it was too in the rain, along slippery slopes, and through 

 long wet grass and brushwood. 



After a day's rest we recrossed the Mergun pass. The 

 snow had almost entirely disappeared from its summit, which 

 was now clothed with short green turf, thickly besprinkled 

 with buttercups, their bright colour presenting a strange and 

 pleasing contrast to the savage aspect of the bare grey rocks 

 and partially snow-clad heights on either side. 



From the top of the pass I made a cUtour over the moun- 

 tains, on the chance of finding a brown bear, as well as for 

 the purpose of visiting some curious tarns. The largest of 

 them, called Choar-nag, must be nearly a mile in circumfer- 

 ence, and from the look of its dark, sullen water, in which its 

 stern surroundings were reflected as in a mirror, I judged it 

 must be very deep. These mountain-tarns or "nags" as 

 they are there termed which are sometimes met with on the 

 Himalayas at very great heights, are regarded by the hill-men 

 with a certain amount of superstition, and usually there are 

 supematural tales current concerning them. The Cashmerees 

 believe them to be the haunts of evil genii in the shape of 

 huge " nags " (snakes), which were at one time worshipped in 

 Cashmere. Early in the season, whilst the winter snow still 

 reaches almost to the margin of the evil-looking water, the 

 aspect of this wild mountain-basin is indeed eerie and lone- 

 some enough for fancy to people it with any number of hob- 

 goblins. And certainly, when contemplating the desolate 

 grandeur of such a spot, begirt as it is with a wilderness of 

 naked crags and stupendous snowy piles, which rear their 

 pale, spectral-looking crests solemnly aloft against the dull 

 blue-black sky peculiar to high altitudes, a vague sense of 

 mysterious awe steals over the beholder as he gazes on the 

 dreary waste around. The dead impressive silence, too, that 

 usually pervades these frozen solitudes is only emphasised 

 by being ever and anon broken by those intermittent blasts 

 of howling wind which are wont to come sweeping over them, 



