250 Notes on Itfoorcrofts Travels in Ladakh, [No. 148. 



vol. II, p. 47, unless indeed a spring or a stream be dispersed over a flat 

 surface, and turned into ice ; but I have never seen any stream so ar- 

 rested, and I have seen many small ones flowing when the thermome- 

 ter was below zero. A comparison between the Pitti and Sutlej is not 

 easily made, but where Captain Hutton saw the two rivers, the Pitti 

 was the broader, and therefore the larger looking; but I think that dur- 

 ing the winter, the Sutlej is really the larger. Dr. Gerard must, I sup- 

 pose, be quoted with reference to the Sutlej in the lower hills, where he 

 says its least breadth is 211 feet. Captain Gerard (Account of Kunawar, 

 p. 26,) gives the breadth at Namptu, a little below the junction of the 

 Pitti as 106 feet, and at Wangto as 92 only. Near Dubling, the united 

 streams rush between rocks scarcely twenty feet apart. 



I do not agree with Captain Hutton, in what he says, vol. II, pp. 2-3, 

 regarding the rise of the rivers of the plains in June, &c. or their fall 

 in January. The melting of snow is a slow operation, but the descent 

 of rain is rapid, and the streams so formed, soon reach the larger rivers 

 and swell their volumes. I am clearly of opinion, that four-fifths of the 

 water in the Sutlej, when mfull flood, is the produce of rain, and not of 

 snow; and that no severe frosts in any Himalayan regions could 

 in the month of January affect the river Indus in Sindh; but while 

 snow fell on the tops of hills and was slowly melted, rain fell on their 

 sides and in the valleys, and was quickly carried into the main 

 streams. 



Shawl-wool Goats. — The shawl- wool goats are not often four or five 

 horned, vol. II, p. 4, but occasionally so only, as a man is sometimes 

 found with six fingers. 



Lamas. — There may not be any really good Lamas in Hangrang or 

 Pitti, as Captain Hutton says, vol. II, p. 23, although I presume his in- 

 formants simply meant, none of eminence or sufficiently versed in their 

 scriptures; but it is not the custom to make any wealthy family man 

 a priest, and marriage is allowed to certain sects of Lamas, 



Pargyul Mountain. — I could not learn that Pargyul meant conical, 

 vol. II. p. 24, but connected with this high and holy hill there is a 

 saying, that goats whose horns meet at top, salaam or make obeisance 

 to it. This story and the joining of his informant's hands in imitation 

 of the goat's horns, may have been in Captain Hutton's head when he 

 wrote. 



