246 EAST NEPAL. Chap. X. 



stream, we soon came to an immense moraine, which 

 blocked up the valley, formed of angular boulders, some of 

 which were fifty feet high. Respiration had been difficult 

 for some time, and the guide we had taken from the village 

 said we were some hours from the top of the pass, and 

 could get but a little way further ; we however proceeded, 

 plunging through the snow, till on cresting the moraine a 

 stupendous scene presented itself. A gulf of moraines, 

 and enormous ridges of debris, lay at our feet, girdled by 

 an amphitheatre of towering, snow -clad peaks, rising to 

 17,000 and 18,000 feet all around. Black scarped 

 precipices rose on every side ; deep snow-beds and blue 

 glaciers rolled down every gulley, converging in the hollow 

 below, and from each transporting its own materials, there 

 ensued a complication of moraines, that presented no order 

 to the eye. In spite of their mutual interference, however, 

 each had raised a ridge of debris or moraine parallel to itself. 



We descended with great difficulty through the soft 

 snow that covered the moraine, to the bed of this gulf 

 of snow and glaciers ; and halted by an enormous 

 stone, above the bed of a little lake, which was snowed all 

 over, but surrounded by two superimposed level terraces, 

 with sharply defined edges. The moraine formed a barrier 

 to its now frozen waters, and it appeared to receive the 

 drainage of many glaciers, which filtered through their 

 gravelly ridges and moraines. 



We could make no further progress ; the pass lay at the 

 distance of several hours' march, up a valley to the north, 

 down which the glacier must have rolled that had deposited 

 this great moraine ; the pass had been closed since October, 

 it being very lofty, and the head of this valley was far more 

 snowy than that at Wallanchoon. We halted in the snow 

 from 3 to 4 v. m., during which time I again took angles 



