62 
NARRATIVE. 
viving the second hot season ; but I have seen 
several fine specimens of them in England, which 
were reported to make first-rate watch-dogs. In the 
more elevated parts of Ladak every animal has an 
undercoat of extremely fine hair called " pushmina," 
and it is this undercoat of the goat from which the 
Kashmir shawls are made. The pushmina of the 
ibex is very highly valued, and of course is extremely 
scarce. 
From the Zoji-la pass to Chagra, I have called the 
Ladak portion of our route, for the country beyond 
Chagra being desert and uninhabited, can hardly be 
said to belong to any one \ I have therefore distin- 
guished it as the Desert. Before entering this desert 
I shall make a few remarks on the region we have 
just passed through. 
In consequence of the dryness of the climate, none 
of the passes along our route, beyond the Zoji-la, are 
ever rendered absolutely impassable by snow, except, 
perhaps, the Sanju pass, on an outlying branch of the 
Kuen Lun, which intercepts all the moisture brought 
from the plains of Central Asia. The line of per- 
petual snow in Laddk is probably not under 20,000 
feet. On entering Laddk from Kashmir the climate 
and appearance of the country completely change. 
The pine-clad mountains and densely wooded valleys 
are replaced, as we have seen, by an apparently end- 
less succession of barren rocky mountains and valleys, 
which are almost desert except along the margins of 
streams. For some distance beyond the top of the 
Zoji-la we found that the ground was still covered 
with green turf ; and this is owing to the wide and 
deep depression of the Zoji-la, which allows moisture 
