254 EAST NEPAL. Chap. XI. 



cold; the elevation, 15,770 feet; dew-point, 16°. The air 

 was not very dry; saturation -point, 670°, whereas at 

 Calcutta it was 0.498° at the same hour. 



The descent was to a broad, open valley, into which the 

 flank of Nango dipped in tremendous precipices, which 

 reared their heads in splintered snowy peaks. At their 

 bases were shoots of debris fully 700 feet high, sloping at 

 a steep angle. Enormous masses of rock, detached by the 

 action of the frost and ice from the crags, were scattered 

 over the bottom of the valley ; they had been precipi- 

 tated from above, and gaining impetus in their descent, 

 had been hurled to almost inconceivable distances from the 

 parent cliff. All were of a very white, fine-grained crystal- 

 lised granite, full of small veins of the same rock still more 

 finely crystallised. The weathered surface of each block 

 was black, and covered with moss and lichens ; the others 

 beautifully white, with clean, sharp-fractured edges. The 

 material of which they were composed was so hard that I 

 found it difficult to detach a specimen. 



Darkness had already come on, and the coolies being far 

 behind, we encamped by the light of the moon, shining 

 through a thin fog, where we first found dwarf-juniper for 

 fuel, at 13,500 feet. A little sleet fell during the night, 

 which was tolerably fine, and not very cold ; the minimum 

 thermometer indicating 14^°. 



Having no tent-poles, I had some difficulty in getting 

 my blankets arranged as a shelter, which was done by 

 making them slant from the side of a boulder, on the top 

 of which one end was kept by heavy stones ; under this 

 roof I laid my bed, on a mass of rhododendron and juniper- 

 twigs. The men did the same against other boulders, and 

 lighting a huge fire opposite the mouth of my ground-nest, 

 I sat cross-legged on the bed to eat my supper ; my face 



