240 ' OBSERVATIONS ON THE 



this mass of mountains, from the great Ki/lds chain and table land on both 

 sides of it, running into the grand rivers, which form the Peninsula of 

 Jndi€(, or intersect the Gangetic plain, or tending towards an aspect 

 comprehended between the debouchures of the Brahmaputra and Oxus. 

 In crossing the remotest accessible points of the snowy barrier, or winding 

 round the bases of its detached peaks, we find the declension of the soil 

 every where, towards the hollows which drain off the southern waters, 

 marked by innumerable rapid torrents throughout a reticulation of levels, 

 which opening into a common trunk or lateral valley, pour their tribute 

 into the great rivers. 



On the north-western frontier of British India, the Satle^ is the 

 centre of this system of rivers, collecting in its downward course from 

 3Iansarovara, streams from the northern skirt of the Himalaya on one 

 side, and the high table land on the other, which, rising in bluff undula- 

 tions, terminates in a rival crest (Ki/Ias) which sends its waters to the 

 Indus. At the deflexion of the Satlej at Shipke, (Chinese Government), 

 it receives similar feeders from the high ridge of Paraldssa on the north- 

 west, and others from the north, to the limit which turns the declivity of 

 the soil towards Laddk and the Indus, and on the south the liquified 

 snow of lofty mountains which have their corresponding base washed 

 by the streams of the Ganges. In this area of intersections, the river 

 SpU'i is the great trunk descending from clusters of peaks at the heads of 

 the Chandrhdga or Chundb, It meanders through an inhabited valley, 

 and debouches into the Satlej, at the village of Namgea, in Kundiver, 

 where the stream is elevated eight thousand six hundred feet. Like the 

 other Intra Himalayan rivers, its slope decreases with the rise of its 

 course, opening out from a narrow rock-girt channel to an expanded bed 

 of sand and alluvial sediment, and towards its source creeping sluggishly 

 round the roots of the cliffs. At its conflux with the Satlej, it emerges 

 from a gorge, or mere fissure, between perpendicular walls of granite rock. 



