1862.] Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. 501 



reason to do, and had I not seen them myself, I could never have 

 credited the possibility of any solidungulate animal getting over places 

 which they certainly had done, and though convinced of the fact, can- 

 not understand how these donkeys get over spots which taxed a man's 

 powers to climb. On the march saw many traces of bears, but none 

 recent, and judged therefrom that their food chiefly consists of roots? 

 grasses, and vegetable matters. Around the camping ground, which 

 is a mere sheepfold in the mountains, gathered a little rhubarb, small 

 and stringy, and along the stream and on the hill side remarked 

 poplar trees and birches. 



August 2nd, Largoo. — Glacier at the foot of the Manirang pass. 

 Camp 15521* feet. The road lies up the course of the stream which 

 descends from the Manirang pass, and is often rather difficult, from 

 crossing piles of loose stones and coarse gravelly debris precipitated 

 from the hills adjoining it. Snow bridges span the stream in many 

 places at the foot of the pass, and eventually the road fairly enters on 

 the glacier. 



It requires a little reflection here to realize the fact that one is 

 actually on a glacier, as nothing is seen around but huge piles of 

 shingle and rocky fragments heaped up in an irregular manner, like 

 some Brobdignagian ploughed field. Long ravines and somewhat 

 anomalous looking pits or depressions are everywhere met with, and 

 occasionally pools of water, which, on closer inspection, are seen to be 

 encircled with walls of ice — not the crystal product, but a dirty look- 

 ing mass embedding large stones and coarser mud and gravel, and at 

 the surface completely covered up by rocky debris melted out of it. 

 Pitched my tent on a small" patch of green sward a few yards square, 

 a little oasis in the midst of an Arctic Sahara. No wood was of 

 course procurable, save a scanty supply I had brought up with me ; but 

 in spite of the cold, I enjoyed greatly the grandeur of the scene, encir- 

 cled by snowy peaks which seemed to impend over my little camp and 

 among which the avalanches might occasionally be heard crashing 

 and booming with a roar surpassing the heaviest artillery. 



A little below the camping ground I met a European de- 

 scending the pass from the North, attended by a few coolies, and 

 we of course halted and "liquored" together and held a brief con- 

 versation as to our respective routes, game, provisions, &c, with 

 regard to which last, he gave me to understand that I had been absurd- 



