35S €OURSE AND LEVELS 



steep and rocky, sometimes clothed with dwarfish bushes, but oftener quit© 

 bare ; four miles brought us once more within the verge of trees, soon after 

 which we entered a noble deodar or pine forest, in which we observed 

 some productions of uncommon size and beauty ; very little below this 

 point, we found wheat and barley almost ready to be cut. The fields were 

 divided and marked out by what are called stone hedges, and there were 

 small huts flat-roofed for the accommodation of those who had to watch or 

 cut the grain, the village itself (Sangla) being still at a considerable dis- 

 tance. Six miles and a half from our camp, we emerged from the forest, 

 where a scene, beautiful and picturesque in a high degree, presented itself 

 to our view, a broad and rather swift river watered a fertile and green val- 

 ley of considerable width. On this side, were seen immense forests down 

 to the very edge of the water ; on that, the more open and well contrasted 

 appearance of successive table lands rising from the river bed, cultivated, 

 and their borders shaded by poplars and willows, while in the middle of 

 two of the largest, the eye rested on two substantial villages, containing each 

 not less than eighty houses ; below, every thing was green and smiling, but 

 as the eye rose, it once more encountered the black and naked rocks, and, 

 still higher, the eternal snows of the frost bound Himalaya. We crossed 

 the Baspa, the river above noticed, on a well boarded and railed sanga 

 ninety-one feet in length, and took up our quarters in the nearer of the two 

 villages, Sangla. The distance was seven miles and three quarters, the 

 whole a considerable, though not steep, descent. 



We were now in Kanawer, a purgunnah of the mountain state Bissahir. 

 Previously to entering into any detail of our journey over this new ground, 

 it may be proper to throw together a few particulars, which though the re- 

 sult of the journey, and consequently not in order here, strictly speaking*, 

 may yet render what follows more intelligible. 



Kanawer comprehends the valley of the Setlej and its principal feeders, 

 from iat, 31° S3', long. 770 47", to lat. 31° 51", long. 78° 42': on the north and 



