1848.] Journal of a trip through Kulu and Ldhul, §-c. 217 



Eternal silence reigneth there 



Upon his snow-girt throne ; 

 And the unsyllabled dull air 



Sleeps echoless and lone. 



The dreary stillness that pervades 



Earth, air, and all around, 

 Appals the heart ; and social man 



Longs for some cheering sound. 



The traders with their laden sheep 



Who pass by Yunam's shore, 

 Leave not their foot-prints on its stones, 



All desolate as before. 



Yet to the simple shepherd's mind 



The place doth not seem lone, 

 For every hill and mountain Pass 



Hath Spirits of its own. 



But Gepan chiefly wins their love ! 



To him square piles they rear, 

 Upon each Pass ; with votive flags 



And horns of the wild deer. 



Sunday, 6th September. Road at first along the edge of the lake : 

 then over three sharp ridges of confusedly heaped up and angular blocks 

 of ferruginous sandstone, down to the bed of the Yunam river. Moor- 

 croft was informed, and appears to have believed, that this " scene of 

 fantastic ruin," as he calls it, was the effect of an earthquake. Indeed 

 no other cause with which we are at present acquainted could produce 

 such mighty and extensive effects. Just below these ridges we saw the 

 ruins of a former bridge, of which only two pieces of timber were now 

 left, which, as fuel was scarce, we carried on with us to cook our food. 

 Indeed, since leaving Darcha our only fuel has been the low, short, dry 

 furze bushes, which with some coarse grasses, appear to be the only 

 herbage of these dreary and uninhabited regions. Along the bed of 

 the river we noticed, what had before attracted the attention of Moor- 

 croft, the numerous and curious isolated hillocks composed of angular 

 masses and fragments of rock. As far as our observation extended they 

 always occurred in the midst of the alluvial flats : they could not there- 

 fore have been formed by accumulated stones which had rolled from 



