1848.] Narrative of a Journey to Cho Lagan, $*c. 141 



probably, and elevation 1G,000 feet, and I cannot suppose the place to be 

 much higher than the Dakhna of the Byans side, (which is 15,750 

 feet for a boiling point of 185°) the descent this side appearing nearly 

 equal to the ascent on the other. 



From Larcha our road lay north-westward, down the valley of the 

 Darma-Yankti, the name of the river which flows into the Sutlej ; 

 the stream winds quietly through a flat bed a furlong wide, stream 

 with rough fragments of broken stone, now mostly covered with snow, 

 and there was a great deal of ice on all the stiller parts of the water ; 

 the declivity is very gentle. We travelled in the bed of the stream for 

 the first mile or two, and then over the foot of sloping ground on the 

 right bank. Two or three miles down we passed an opening from the 

 south-westward through the mountain on the left, coming in two branch- 

 es from the Darma passes, Nyue and Kach, which communicate this 

 way with Hundes. The Darma-Yankti has derived its name from 

 its alleged origin in this quarter, though as far as I could see, by far 

 the principal body of the river is that by which we have descended 

 from the base of the Byans, and not the Darma, Himachal ; I could 

 distinguish nothing in the direction of the Kach and Nyue Dhuras but 

 confused heaps of continuous snow, like the northern side of Lankpya. 

 Two or three miles further down at the point where the river turns 

 northward by east, the left bank assumes the/ remarkable straight and 

 regular from which is one of the characteristics! of the ravines on the 

 northern side of the Himalaya in this part of Hundes ; it resembles a 

 huge artificial dyke running for several miles in a straight line, in a 

 steep slope which at this end is I suppose 500 feet in vertical height, 

 the top of it being covered with snow. Our path along the right bank 

 of the river now lay over undulating ground intersected with a multitude 

 of ridges and hollows which proved extremely troublesome to us, fa- 

 tigued as we were still from yesterday's work ; the ridges were all of bare 

 sharp stones, and the hollows between them filled with deep accumula- 

 tions of snow, recurring one after the other at every fifty paces, for one 

 or two miles ; over which abominable ground I found it a choice of evils 

 to ride or walk, my pony being as jaded as myself. Below this we came 

 to Silangtar, a stream flowing into the Darma-Yankti from the eastward 

 in a bed of great width and depth, through a considerable opening in 

 the mountains on our right hand, a mere ravine apparently leading to 



