226 WANDERINGS OP A 



long and scarcely a mile in breadth. The mountains on either 

 side are of great height, and very steep in certain places. 

 The flanking ridges run south-east, and narrow the valley 

 a little way below Unshun, where the sides become more 

 wooded, and the Scihde river, from its various tributaries, 

 swells into a magnificent mountain torrent, which empties 

 itself finally into the Chenaub a little north of the Kishtewar. 

 I do not think I have seen the deodar cedar attain a greater 

 size than in Lower Wurdwun, where numbers are felled and 

 floated down the Chenaub to India. I visited this district in 

 1854, two years after the events I am now recording, and 

 spent several weeks among its wild alpine valleys, where I 

 killed two ibexes and upwards of twenty brown bears. The 

 Wurdwun river (called also Scinde) rises in a magnificent 

 glacier at the top of the Suru valley. There are, besides, 

 several smaller glaciers in various parts of the Wurdwun at 

 Sochness. Between Unshun and Pambur there are snow- 

 beds that may be said to be persistent, with moraines of 

 various dimensions. I was led to suppose that the boulders 

 and collections of rock in the valley around Pambur were the 

 remnants of ancient glacial accumulations, as there is now 

 no appearance of anjrthing of the kind in these situations. The 

 result of two measurements made the village of Unshun about 

 9000 feet above the level of the sea, or nearly 4000 above 

 Serinuggur : this is perhaps nearly correct. 



The poor villagers expressed great fears that, between 

 our requirements and those of our other friends and their 

 followers, we would eat them out of house and hold, their 

 supplies being never more than sufficient for their own 

 wants ; besides, from the lateness of the season, their cattle 

 and sheep were now starving, and numerous carcases lay 

 about in the villages to be devoured by bears, dogs, and 



