370 Narrative of a Journey from Soobathoo [No. 125. 



this village by corresponding barometrical observations is 10,165 feet, 

 and grapes do not ripen here. There are many gardens of fine large 

 turnips belonging to the village, fenced around with hedges of goose- 

 berries ; the latter are of the red sort, small and extremely acid, but 

 make a capital tart. 



8th October. — We were delayed till 2 p. m., in order to get grain 

 ground for the consumption of our people, there being no village at the 

 next stage. We marched only one and three-quarter mile, and the 

 road at first was a descent to the Taglak'har, and then a steep ascent 

 of 2,000 feet, most part of the way up a slope of forty degrees, and over 

 rugged rocks. We were obliged to halt here, there being no water for 

 many miles in advance. 



9th October. — Marched ten miles to the bed of a mountain torrent, 

 and did not arrive till an hour after dark. This day's journey was one 

 of the most tiresome we had experienced, crossing two mountains of 

 12,000 and 13,000 feet, the ascents and descents, one of which was 

 full 4,000 feet in perpendicular height, were steeper for a longer con- 

 tinuance than any we had yet seen, and the path was strewed with 

 broken slate, which gave way under the feet. Neither tent nor baggage 

 arrived, and we had nothing to eat but cakes of very coarse meal, which 

 hunger however made palatable ; upon this kind of food, together with a 

 few partridges which our people occasionally shot, and without either 

 plates and knives or forks, we lived for five days. We should have 

 afforded an amusing spectacle, seated upon blankets near a fire in the 

 open air, surrounded by our servants, dissecting the partridges with the 

 Jcookree, or short sword worn by the Goorkhalees, and smoking plain 

 tobacco out of a pipe little better than what is used by the lowest 

 classes. Novelty however has its charms, and our being in a country 

 hitherto untrodden by an European, gave us a delight amidst our most 

 toilsome marches, scarcely to be imagined by a person who has never 

 been in the same situation. 



10th October. — Marched to Dabling six and three-quarter miles. The 

 road was pretty good, lying near the river. We went a mile out of the 

 direct way, to visit the Namptoo Sango, a wooden bridge across the Sut- 

 lej. The river was here 106 feet broad, with large rocks in its bed, and 

 the bridge seventy-eight feet above the stream, which rushes with rapid 

 violence between blocks of granite. We in vain tried to measure its 



