200 The Flooding of the Indus. [No. 3. 



Kangri. The Attok boatmen declared at ouee that the warning re- 

 ceived in 18J.-1, emanated from the same place ; they recognized the 

 style and stated that the same form of adjuration was employed 

 and that the signatures appended were the same, except that two or 

 three individuals, who might fairly be supposed to have died in the 

 interval, were omitted from the later document. Search was then 

 made in the house of Bulloo, the oldest of the Mullicks of the boat- 

 men, but though it was well known that the paper was preserved 

 there till a year or two ago, the search proved unsuccessful. 



There is a village named Kangri marked in the Surveyor Gene- 

 ral's map of the Punjab and adjoining countries, and I believe this is 

 the place alluded to, it is at no great distance from the Nubra and 

 Shayok Valleys, and if the fact be that both papers issued from it, a 

 fair inference is that in both cases the obstruction was at no great 

 distance from its site ; for in these valleys such news would not 

 travel far except it were down the course of the river. We know that 

 the damming of 1841, took place within two or three days' march 

 of the village, and, till better evidence be obtained, can but conjec- 

 ture that this also occurred in the Shayok or in the Nubra valley. 

 Both are well adapted for the purpose, being w r ide with strangula- 

 tions at intervals, having comparatively a small slope of bed and be- 

 ing supplied from large glaciers above with considerable and unfail- 

 ing streams of water. For though the main fall of the Indus-bed 

 takes place between Kangri and Attok, yet the general character of 

 all the streams I have observed in the Himalayas is to fall in steps, 

 a comparatively sluggish portion intervening below the first rush of 

 the minor tributaries, to be succeeded by the main stream making 

 its way in a series of rapids for two or three hundred miles. Botli 

 the Nubra and the upper Shayok are thus comparatively slow flow- 

 ing, and in the former especially there are numerous quicksands. 



I have two or three times crossed the Shayok, and found it in the 

 summer time a stream of considerable size. 



On the other hand, and contradictory to the above, all Major Be- 

 cher's information pointed to the river of Giigit, and that pretty 

 consistently ; but as this cannot be reconciled to the facts I have 

 noted, as I understand them, I am inclined, till more evidence is 

 obtained, to discredit it. I do not find in the map alluded to glaciers 



