1848.] Narrative of a Journey to Cho Lagan, fyc. 163 



from the water's edge, and extending along four or five miles of the west 

 end, the "face of the rock," noticed hy Moorcroft in his walk round 

 the north-west corner of the lake, " in many places near 300 feet per- 

 pendicular." Thence eastward the shore is a plain three or four miles 

 wide, sloping down from the base of the Gangri mountains, which, rise 

 behind in a continuous wall. This ground appears to be a continuation 

 of the plain on the northern shore of Lagan under Kailas, passing 

 without interruption, or with a slight rise perhaps, behind the ridge of 

 hills above mentioned. Moorcroft, 8th August, estimates the valley of 

 Gangri to be 1 2 miles broad and near 24 long : that length may be 

 right, but the breadth is not clear; if the 12 miles be intended to in- 

 clude the whole basin of the two lakes it is considerably under the 

 mark ; and the mere plain between the Gangri mountains and the 

 northren shore of the lakes cannot average any thing like that width. 

 Moorcroft was then encamped (as I conjecture) in the vicinity of Barka, 

 and he possibly estimated the breadth of the plain from its appearance 

 at that point, where it is certainly very much widened by the southing 

 of the eastern shore of Rakas Tal. At the north-east corner ofMapan 

 the level ground is widened by the rounding of the lake ; it looked 

 greener than the rest, as though irrigated by streams of water, and is 

 said to be pasturage occupied by Dung, &c. This was noticed by 

 Moorcroft as " a plain at the foot of elevated land. . . . to the north-east." 

 On the east side of the lake rise hills and mountains sloping down to 

 the water's edge with more or less margin of level ground at the bottom. 

 The northern half of this range is mere hill of no great height, con- 

 nected at the north end with the base of the Gangri mountains, and on 

 the south joining a cluster of mountain, that occupies the southern half 

 of the lake's eastern shore : the latter was well topped with snow and 

 seemed as lofty as the lower parts of the Gangri range. The south end 

 of this mountain was connected with the base of the Nipal snowy 

 range by a ridge of inferior hills, behind which rose another mountain 

 very similar to the first, but not so far detached from the Himalaya. 

 These hills preclude any distant prospect to the east of the lake, in 

 which direction nothing more is to be seen than the crest of the Gangri 

 range on the north, and of the Nipal Himalaya to the south ; both ap- 

 pear to make a good deal of southing ; and the Gangri range, is termi- 

 nated twenty or thirty miles off either by actual subsidence in height, 



