A Journey to the Salween 73 
snow, there would be no great difficulty in taking mules 
across, though it would be a slow business, but with the 
snow as deep and soft as we now found it, the under- 
taking would be hazardous, and I was glad we had not 
attempted it. 
We spent half an hour resting on the summit. There 
was no view, though to the east the snow-clad Mekong- 
Yang-tze divide showed up, while to the west we looked 
only into a deep valley. Behind us lay China, in front 
Tibet. 
The pass faced E.N.E. and W.S.W., presenting con- 
siderable differences of vegetation on the two slopes, due 
to the earlier melting of the snow on the south side, which 
was consequently much drier, besides being steeper. It 
was covered with a short alpine turf dotted with hundreds 
of flowers of the small mauve Primula pulchella. Later in 
the summer, other flowers appear, including a MJeconopsts, 
which I found in seed five months later. 
On the snowy slope, however, were shrubs, chiefly 
azaleas, junipers, and willows which protruded through the 
snow here and there, brown tussocks of a fern with no 
new fronds showing as yet, and the silvery leaves of a 
potentilla. Evidently this slope is covered with a rich 
assortment of plants from July to September, but when 
I saw it again the snow was deeper than ever and not 
a twig showed through. 
The rock appeared to be a grey banded gneiss with a 
good deal of quartz, much crumpled and tilted, so as to 
present sharp edges above and steep precipices below. 
Descending from the pass, we found ourselves in a 
larger valley running more or less north and south, and 
passing through alpine meadow once more, we reached 
a second hut on the edge of the forest towards dusk ; the 
rain which had held off all day setting in again. All round 
us was high alpine meadow with scattered willow, alder, and 
birch trees draped with lichen, which flapped dismally in the 
wind. A tall crucifer (Cardamine macrophylla) was con- 
spicuous here, and Gan-ton informed me that the Lutzu 
and Tibetans boil and eat the leaves and stems. He also 
pointed out some brown fritillaries and a hyacinth, the 
bulbs of which are eaten by the natives, an Umbellifer of 
