Dec. 1848. VILLAGE OF YANGMA. 241 



in order to ascend the Kanglachem pass as far as practicable. 

 The houses are low, built of stone, of no particular 

 shape, and are clustered in groups against the steep 

 face of the terrace ; filthy lanes wind amongst them, 

 so narrow, that if you are not too tall, you look into 

 the slits of windows on either hand, by turning your 

 head, and feel the noisome warm air in whiffs against your 

 face. Glacial boulders lie scattered throughout the village, 

 around and beneath the clusters of houses, from which it 

 is sometimes difficult to distinguish the native rock. I 

 entered one house by a narrow low door through walls 

 four feet thick, and found myself in an apartment full of 

 wool, juniper-wood, and dried dung for fuel : no one lived 

 in the lower story, which was quite dark, and as I stood 

 in it my head was in the upper, to which I ascended 

 by a notched pole (like that in the picture of a Kamschatk 

 house in Cook's voyage), and went into a small low room. 

 The inmates looked half asleep, they were intolerably indolent 

 and filthy, and were employed in spinning wool and 

 smoking. A bole in the Avail of the upper apartment led 

 me on to the stone roof of the neighbouring house, from 

 which I passed to the top of a glacial boulder, descending 

 thence by rude steps to the narrow alley. Wishing to see 

 as much as I could, I was led on a winding course through, 

 in and out, and over the tops of the houses of the village, 

 which alternately reminded me of a stone quarry or gravel 

 pit, and gipsies living in old lime-kilns ; and of all 

 sorts of odd places that are turned to account as human 

 habitations. 



From tlie village I ascended to the top of the terrace, 

 which is a perfectly level, sandy, triangular plain, pointing 

 down the valley at the fork of the latter, and abutting 

 against the flank of a steep, rocky, snow-topped mountain 



VOL. I. H 



