LA DAK. 
53 
widens, and is from six to eight miles across for a 
distance of forty or fifty miles, and the river flows 
through the centre of it from east to west. There 
are numerous villages and fields all along the banks ; 
but for a mile on either side, and between the fields 
and the foot of the hills, there is a desert waste of 
sand, gravel, and large boulders. The granite moun- 
tains near Le are in many cases very much decom- 
posed, and there being no rain to wash it away, as 
m many parts of Ladak, the debris which falls from 
them by the action of the weather often forms slopes 
of many hundred feet in height, sometimes composed 
of fine sand ; in other places these slopes consist of 
large angular fragments. 
At Le Mr. Shaw joined us, on the 3rd July, having 
left England on the 20th May. It was necessary to halt 
here for a week to make preparations for our further 
journey. The extent of these preparations, and the 
care required to secure their completeness, will be 
understood when I state that we had before us twenty- 
seven marches, over country at an average altitude 
of nearly 15,000 feet, and almost an absolute 
desert the whole way. We could not count even on 
getting grass for the pack-horses, and had to carry 
enough grain to feed them until we should arrive at 
the Kirghiz encampments, on the Yarkand frontier. 
Part of our baggage had to be carried on ponies, 
and the remainder by Tibetan porters ; for every 
two men who accompanied us a third was required, to 
carry food for himself and the other two. The same 
proportion of extra baggage-animals was necessary 
to carry grain for them. Allowance had also to be 
made for horses breaking down on the road. On 
