OF THE RIVER SETLEJ. 387 



ford, and by which, had the footing been lost, one must have been dashed 

 to pieces. The water was a little more than middle-deep, the current 

 strong though not rapid, the width about one hundred feet or more ; the 

 round smooth stones which formed the bottom were the chief difficulty, as 

 they afforded no secure footing. The temperature of the water was so low, 

 that I found my limbs quite benumbed, and it was some minutes before 

 they recovered their feeling. With some little delay, my few followers got 

 all across, and we then found an excellent road the whole way to Lari. It 

 lay sometimes in the river bed, and sometimes along a flat in which the ri- 

 ver had cut its channel deep and far to the left. The mountains entirely 

 clay slate, and exhibiting in manyplaces^a declivity of the most undeviating 

 regularity, formed of loose fragments, which rolling from above had all 

 taken the station assigned to them by gravity. We reached Lari by dark, 

 and were furnished by the hospitality of the people with a house to shelter 

 and firewood to warm us. The distance from Skalkar was seventeen miles, 

 q{ two thousand paces each. 



This village is situated at the southern foot of the ridge, which rises from 

 the narrow plain or valley I have already described, and the width of 

 which here is about one-third of a mile. The white houses of the small 

 hamlet of Tabo are seen about one mile and a half farther up. The culti- 

 vation extends the whole breadth of this valley, that is from the village to 

 the river, but not far above or below. The river runs in a channel about 



120 feet below this level piece, and from the immediate bed, the mountain 

 ridge on the opposite side rises. I have already described the appearance 

 of these chains, equally bare of snow and of forest, arid occasionally hav- 

 ing their irregular declivities concealed by the beds of loose fragments that 

 lie against their sides. Here and there, within their recesses, a dry and 

 withered turf affords a scanty and precarious subsistence to cattle, but 

 jieither bush nor bramble, leaf nor herb, offers a relief to the eye, fatigued 

 jjl contemplating the same unvarying bareness. Lari is, in this quarter, 



\v w s 



