142 Narrative of a Journey to Cho Lagan, fyc. [Aug. 



nothing but Himalayan chaos. Notwithstanding the difficulty of my 

 own progress, I had got so far ahead of the Bhotias with the cattle and 

 baggage, that I was obliged to wait an hour here before they rejoined 

 me. "We then crossed Silangtar, and came to easier ground ; the snow 

 decreasing as we continued down the valley, then altogether receding 

 to the adjacent hill-sides giving place to stunted herbage, and lastly 

 to a few scraps of Ddma, the "Goat-thorn" of Tibet (a sort of Astra- 

 galus) and the only firewood for the traveller in Hundes. Late in the 

 afternoon we reached a halting-place called Bhawiti, close under the 

 hill-side on our right. The Darma-Yankti is a quarter of a mile to the 

 westward of this, flowing through a level bed a furlong wide, with 

 the great dyke-like bank rising high on the opposite side ; on this side 

 the mountains have subsided into steep hills, still abundantly covered 

 with snow, between the base of which and the river bed intervenes an 

 open bank of undulating ground. 



Our halting-place here is eligible only by comparison with those of 

 the last two days ; there is just enough Bama for a few fires, some 

 shelter under a small precipice in the hill-side and one or two boulders 

 of rock, and a most ridiculous Dharmshala consisting of a stone built 

 hovel four or five feet cube, just big enough to admit of one Hindu 

 squattant. 



Thermometer at 8^ p. m. 30°, but this was on the top of the Dharm- 

 shala, inside of which I afterwards found that Bhauna had established 

 his kitchen, and no doubt the temperature was thus much raised above 

 that of the open air. At this time, when attempting to empty a mug 

 of water from which I had been drinking not long before, I found the 

 contents retained so firmly by a coating of ice that they could not be 

 dislodged by the most sudden and forcible inversion. 



2d October. — Thermometer at 7 a. m. 20°, boiled at 185° ; elevation 

 of Bhawiti 15,750 feet, which agrees pretty well with my estimate for 

 Larcha, as we were there encamped in the bed of the river and are now 

 two or three hundred feet above it ; the fall of the stream between the 

 two places appears very moderate, and I did not observe any very 

 decided descent in our road over the left bank. The diminution of 

 snow here naturally follows the greater openness of the country and 

 the distance northward from the crest of the Himalayan range, beyond 

 which the formation and fall of snow makes little progress. There are 



