a third Journey to the Yang-tze 9 7 
the mountains gradually contracting till finally the stream 
cuts its way through a narrow ravine shut in by perpen- 
dicular cliffs; and this irrespective of the kind of rock met 
with. The reversed valley is however purely a climatic 
effect, at least in this region; for heavy rains occur in the 
mountains at the valley head and the torrent flows down 
into the rainless arid region where nothing but gorges can 
be formed. 
We camped on a grassy flat amidst poplars and firs at an 
altitude of about 12,000 feet and awoke to find it snowing. 
Once ex route, riding soon became intolerable, for my 
feet and hands were nearly frozen, so I clambered up 
through the forest on foot. When we stopped for lunch 
under some junipers near the tree-limit the snow was 
whirling down thicker than ever; nothing was visible but 
grey clouds, trees laden with snow, and a world of falling 
flakes. Through the heavy mists everything loomed white 
and indistinct, and once out of the forest we got the full 
benefit of the wind. Granite had given place to the usual 
limestone capping this range, but of the fine scenery we 
were now coming into I could see little. The valley 
head was blocked by a rounded hummock of rock over 
which the stream poured in several small cascades, but this 
obstacle we outflanked, reaching an open plateau-like valley 
covered with dwarf rhododendron, but now buried under 
deep snow. We could not see more than a hundred yards 
in any direction, but presently we entered a narrow stony 
gulley with tremendous scree-slopes rising steeply on either 
hand to the splintered limestone towers which had given 
birth to them. It was a most desolate scene and the going 
was very bad, for the gulley being blocked by large boulders, 
it was necessary to traverse the scree itself. 
Finally we scrambled up a wall of rock to the actual 
pass, where our troubles really began, for we had turned to 
the north. It was difficult to arrive at an approximation of 
the altitude from a comparison of the vegetation on the 
two sides, on account of the snow, but evidently we were 
somewhere near the limit of plants on both north and 
south slopes, so that 17,000 feet is probably a near estimate 
for the A-léng-la, which is considerably higher than the 
Tsa-lei-la, marked 15,800 feet on Major Davies’s map. 
W.T. I2 
