JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 



Part I.— HISTORY, LITERATURE, &e. 



No. IL— 1876. 



Description of a trip to the Oilgit Valley, a dependaney of the Maharaja of 

 Kashmir. — By Capt. H. C. Maksh, 18£A Bengal Cavalry. 



(With three plates and a map.) 



Starting in the summer of 1875 from Srinagar, the chief town of 

 Kashmir, my route lay through the pretty valley of the Pohar river and 

 over the watershed dividing the drainage of the Jhelum and the Kishn- 

 ganga. I crossed over the latter river by a slack twig-rope bridge and con- 

 tinued up the Kheyl nala, a small tributary coming from the highlands 

 under the immense mass of the ISFanga Parbat mountain on the borders of 

 €hilas. # I arrived at the Mir Malik district of the Astor country by an 

 hitherto almost unknown pass, called by the Astories ' Sheothur' or Bone- 

 cutting, about 15,000 feet high, at that time covered with snow; and 

 marching through the Astor valley (a brief description of which I gave in 

 the ' Pioneer' of January 1876), I found myself at the desolate village of 

 Bunji on the arid banks of the Indus river on the 16th July. 



The wars between the former rulers of Gilgit, especially those of Gora- 

 man against the Dogras, as the Kashmir troops are generally called, have 

 devastated a once flourishing district, for such it was, in the times of Ahmad 

 Shah, the former ruler of Skardu. 



The present aspect of the Bunji plain is a desert. There are a few fields 



and trees round the fort itself, the whole country slopes from the high snow- 



* A sketch of the Mazena Pass leading into Chilas is given. It was hitherto almost 



unknown, and is situated at the head of the Eoupel Nala, one of the glaciers of the Nang 



Parbat. The Pass is only open in September and October, and is little used. 



