HO Notes on the Pcmgong lake district of Laclakh. [No. 2, 



dinners as if nothing uncomfortable had happened. One must give 

 the Indian cooks immense credit for the manner in which they work- 

 under the discomfort and difficulties that must from time to time 



happen on the march. 



The valley ahead of us appeared to end at about six roles distance, 

 aud thus it had been sketched in on the rough reconnoissauce I had, 

 60 the next morning it was determined to leave the camp where it stood, 

 and go on ourselves to the main ridge of the valley, and return by 

 evening. After breakfasting we walked up the soft gravelly bed of 

 the river for about four miles, it then narrowed considerably, and took 

 a bend to the east-south-east and at three miles further on div.ded into 

 two large branches : we followed that having a nearly due east course 

 From the mountain spurs having approached so close to the broad bed 

 of the Kyanigo Traggar, the absence of water, and it having a so 

 taken a bend, we had been led to imagine its course here ended, but 

 this we were both of us much surprised to find was not the case, for 

 we now beheld ahead of us an enormous broad gravel covered valley, 

 stretching away to the foot of mountains at least 18 miles further to 

 the eastward. It was quite impossible to reach the main ridge that 

 day so I sent a coolie back to bring on the tents. This open valley 

 had the most peculiar aspect of any I had yet seen, but partook m its 

 dry gravelly bed a good deal of the nature of those valleys I have seen 

 between Pal and the Kiting Gang La ; its elevation was about 16,400 

 feet, and its breadth in widest part about two miles ; the ridge of hills, 

 hounding it to the north, lay about four to five miles off, but were only 

 3,000 feet above it, and the spurs came with a very gradual fall towards 

 tire valley. On the south a very low ridge of about 500 feet, in places 

 not more than 300, separated this valley plain from another broad one 

 of a like character, the ravines of which ran up into the hills in wide 

 beds, from 2 to 300 yards in breadth. Several broad lateral drainage 

 plains also formed a junction with the one we were in from the northern 

 line of hills that ran parallel with it. Directly ahead a low broad pass 

 was visible, the mountains rising to the south of it in snowy peaks 

 21 000 feet high ; but from the great altitude we stood at, and their 

 distance 15 miles off, they gave no idea of so great an altitude. Plenty 

 of the woody rooted wild lavender, or rather a stunted plant with the 

 like scent, grew around, but grass was very scanty, only in two or 





