1848.] Narrative of a Journey to Cho Lagan, fyc. 169 



imprisoned for some nine months, and had to live the best way he could 

 upon his sheep, till released by the formation of ice again next winter ; 

 a miserable and dangerous situation, comparable to that of the Jwari 

 Bhotia, who was snowed up for a whole winter at Topi Diinga, a dismal 

 pit between the two formidable passes of Kyiingar and U'nta-Dhura. 



At 2 p. m. we left Tungkang; course south-westerly, crossing a mile 

 of flat ground upon the south-east corner of the Tal, with a large 

 ravine running through it from the foot of mount Gurla, full of granitic 

 shingle, but without water. We thence ascended high ground con- 

 necting the base of Momonangli with the range of hills that forms the 

 south-western boundary of Lagan. The eminence is many miles in 

 breadth, undulated into a number of ridges and hollows, and attaining 

 an elevation of 100 feet perhaps above the level of the lake, at the 

 highest part crossed by the road ; but further west the hills are higher 

 than that, and partially tipped with snow. We were nearly 4 hours 

 crossing this hilly ground, something impeded by a very strong south 

 wind blowing in our teeth ; towards sunset, we descended into a sloping 

 plain, the head of the Pruang valley. 



Gurla rose close upon our left, on our right and rear was the 

 southern face of the hills of Lagan, which here range east and west 

 for a few miles ; in front rose the Byans Himalaya in dark steep slopes 

 with the snowy summits towering behind, and close below ran the 

 Karnali, hidden in a deep ravine. Projections of the mountainous 

 enclosure concealed the opening of the valley from Chujia Tol on the 

 north-west and to central Pruang on the south-east. This valley 

 of northern Pruang forms an acute triangle, of which the base and 

 smallest side, is marked by the hills of Lagan on the north ; the two 

 longer sides by the base of Momonangli on the east, and the Karnali 

 at the foot of the Byans Himalaya on the west ; the apex of the trian- 

 gle being southward at the entrance of middle Pruang. All this 

 ground, though flat in the gross, has a sharp slope towards the Karnali, 

 and drains into the river by a multitude of deep ravines rising from the 

 base of mount Gurla, and one or two from the Lagan hills. In the 

 middle of the valley, a mile or two from its north end, a singular little 

 isolated hill rises from the plain ; apparently the same that I saw from 

 the valley between Lama Choktan and Chujia Tol on the 2nd instant. 



We had to cross a mile of very rugged ground covered with a flood 



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