INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 223 



1. GuGE or HuNDEs is wholly under Chinese influence^ 

 and is comprised between the Himalaya and its Cis-Satlej 

 branch. It extends from the lakes of Mansarowar and Rakas- 

 tal down the course of the Satlej to Kunawar. The surface 

 of Guge differs remarkably from the rest of Tibet in the 

 greater extent and depth of an alluvial deposit, found else- 

 where in Tibet in smaller quantity, and here forming an 

 undulating surface, gradually declining from 15,200 feet, the 

 level of the lakes, to 10,000 feet at the confines of Kunawar. 

 This province, familiarly known as the plain of Tibet, and 

 which has mainly given rise to the erroneous impression of 

 Tibet being a steppe, plain, or table-land, is 120 miles long 

 and 15 to 60 in breadth, and is traversed by the Satlej and 

 its various feeders, which flow in deep narrow ravines 1000 to 

 3000 feet below its mean level. 



The botany of Guge is scanty in the extreme ; the country 

 has been traversed by Moorcroft and Captain H. Strachey, and 

 visited by Captain R. Strachey and Mr. Winterbottom, who 

 collected fifty or sixty species of plants around the lakes, and 

 calculated that not one-twentieth of its surface was covered 

 with vegetation. 



2. PiTi and Parang. — Of these two vaUeys, that of the 

 Piti river is entered from Kunawar by the Hangarang Pass, 

 elevated 14,800 feet. The Parang Pass, over the range divi- 

 ding the Parang from the Piti rivers, is 18,500 feet. The lofty 

 platform of Rupchu, which extends from the Parang Pass 

 across the main chain of the Himalaya to the adjacent head 

 of the Zanskar valley, and from the Chumoreri lake to the 

 Lachalang and Tunglung Passes, is elevated 15-16,000 feet ; 

 Chumoreri lake, situated on it, being 15,200. The vegetation 

 of the whole province is extremely scanty. 



3. Zanskar occupies the north slope of the main Himalayan 

 chain, parallel with Kishtwar on the south. The change in 

 the vegetation on crossing the Umasi Pass (18,000 feet) from 

 Kishtwar is very sudden, only two or three species found 

 at 12-13,000 feet on the Tibetan face lieing identifiable with 



