a 



p 



■ 



Dec. 1813. ASCENT OF NANGO MOUNTAIN. 251 



Beyond the region of trees and large shrubs the alpine 

 rhododendrons filled the broken surface of the valley, 

 growing with PotentiUa, Honeysuckle, Polygonum, and 

 dwarf juniper. The peak of Nango seemed to tower 

 over the gorge, rising behind some black, splintered, rocky 

 cliffs, sprinkled with snow ; narrow defiles opened up 

 through these cliffs to blue glaciers, and their mouths were 

 invariably closed by beds of shingly moraines, curving 

 outwards from either flank in concentric ridges. 



Towards the base of the peak, at about 14,000 feet, the 

 scenery is very grand ; a great moraine rises suddenly to 

 the north-west, under the principal mass of snow and ice, 

 and barren slopes of gravel descend from it ; on either side 

 are rugged precipices ; the ground is bare and stony, with 

 patches of brown grass : and, on looking back, the valley 

 ppears very steep to the first shrubby vegetation, of dark 

 green rhododendrons, bristling with ugly stunted pines. 



We followed a valley to the south-east, so as to tarn the 

 flank of the peak ; the path lying over beds of October 

 snow at 14,000 feet, and over plashy ground, from its 

 melting. Sometimes our way lay close to the black 

 precipices on our right, under w r hich the snow was deep ; 

 and we dragged ourselves along, grasping every prominence 

 of the rock with our numbed fingers. Granite appeared in 

 large veins in the crumpled gneiss at a great elevation, in 

 its most beautiful and loosely-crystallised form, of pearly 

 white prisms of felspar, glassy quartz, and milk-white flat 

 plates of mica, with occasionally large crystals of tour- 

 maline. Garnets were very frequent in the gneiss near 

 the granite veins. Small rushes, grasses, and sedges 

 formed the remaining vegetation, amongst which were the 

 withered stalks of gentians, Seclum, Arenaria, Silene, and 

 many Composite plants. 



