52 
NARRATIVE. 
into our villages ? No doubt the trees come in the 
same mysterious way." I asked about the trees 
being sacred, and he said there could be no question 
about that, and it was very unlucky to meddle with 
them ; for an Englishman had come to the village 
many years ago, and none of the villagers being at 
hand to prevent him, he made his servants pull down 
some branches from one of the dead trees to make a 
fire. The sky at the time the desecration occurred 
was clear and the air still, but within half an hour a 
fearful thunderstorm, with rain and wind, such as 
had never before nor since been experienced in Ladak, 
burst over the village and completely destroyed all 
the crops. Ever since that time the "Shukpas" had 
been most carefully preserved. 
On the 2nd July we marched eighteen miles to Le. 
Near Nimu, we passed up a ravine where there are 
some extraordinary mud pillars, often fifty or more 
feet in height, and each with an enormous stone on 
the top. These pillars are met with in many other 
places, and sometimes are very numerous and of the 
most fantastic shapes. Many of them seem as if the 
slightest push would throw them over, and one can- 
not resist the inclination to test their stability by 
throwing stones at them. The formation of these 
pillars is very simple ; the valley had originally been 
filled up with clay, on the surface of which were the 
large stones which are now seen on the top of the 
pillars. The clay under the stones was protected 
from the rain, which has washed away all tlie sur- 
rounding materials and thus formed these extra- 
ordinary pillars. 
The Indus valley, three miles beyond Nimu, 
