1846.] and Boorun Passes over the Himalaya. 107 



What has been done once may be done again, but no reasonable man 

 would attempt this a second time. The reward consists in the view 

 of the river, here not above ten yards over, " a hell of waters" rushing 

 on, like Pyriphlegethon, in perfect cataract, boiling, foaming, and tossed 

 up vertically in one continuous mass of spray in its ungovernable career, 

 amidst immense boulders, and under the tremendous precipices of 

 the right bank, which it seems bent on undermining. What an anti- 

 thesis between its recent quiescent state and gentle fall as ice and snow, 

 and this unruly turbulence, and then its almost stagnant course onward 

 to the ocean, where it enters on its final probation as vapor, realizing 

 the hell imagined by Shakespeare : — 



" To reside 

 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; 

 To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 

 And blown with restless violence about 

 The pendent world." 



Above this, the river receives an affluent from Meeroo, and on 

 an isolated rock, just above the junction, stands the Raja's Castle 

 of Choling, the Chalgee of the map : still higher up, the Channel 

 widens, and the river flows with a strong uniform current, bounded by 

 a broad bed of shingle on its right bank. The Sutluj may here be said 

 to effect its passage through the great range, and, generally, the travel- 

 ler cannot fail to be surprised at the manner, almost resembling instinct, 

 in which the river finds its way through such a labyrinth of mountains. 

 It has here indeed followed the natural line of a vast echellon formed 

 by the Shatool ranges to the south, and those of Speetee and Koolloo to 

 the north : and from the Thibet frontier at Shipkee to Rampoor has an 

 average fall of sixty feet per mile. The absence of lakes, and the ex- 

 istence of so general and efficient a system of natural drainage seems 

 to argue the vast antiquity of the Himalaya, and may also serve to 

 establish Lyell's theory of a gradual upheavement of mountain chains, 

 which afforded time for the water to adjust their levels ; and to fill up 

 the basins with those deep deposits of gravel and boulders, through 

 which they are so often found to excavate their beds. The planes are 

 indeed still far from uniformity ; and the roar of the torrent and the cas- 

 cade, the sound of many waters, is rarely out of our ears as we approach 

 the higher mountains. 



