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NARRATIVE. 
soil was clay, with sand and gravel on the surface, 
and there was no sign of moisture nor saline efflores- 
cence anywhere near. In the upper part of this valley, 
however, and in all its branches, there were water- 
channels, which were now dry, but are no doubt 
frequently filled with water ; for their beds were moist, 
and Sedams were growing there in great luxuriance. 
The pits were confined to the level part of the valley. 
Similar pits were afterwards seen in marshy ground 
along the sides of the Karakash valley ; bnt in that 
locality the bottom of each pit contained brine, 
occasionally incrusted with common salt, which our 
followers collected for use. 
On arriving at Tarl Dat, at the end of to-day's 
march, I saw more of these circular depressions, from 
some of which projected a mound of dried frothy 
mud; these had the appearance of mud volcanoes which 
had dried up. Tara Singh, who had been here before, 
told me that after rain these pits frothed like yeast. 
The view from Tarl Dat was exceedingly grand. 
The Kuen Lun range, tipped with snow, and the 
valleys filled with glaciers, extended like a wall across 
the northern horizon thirty to forty miles distant, and 
between us and these mountains was an open plain 
covered for miles by an ice-bed : this ice-bed seems to 
be fed by some warm springs near the place where 
our camp was pitched. 
Although our point of view was about 16,500 feet 
above the sea, the Kuen Lun range seemed quite as 
lofty as do the Himalayas, when viewed from the same 
distance on the Panjab plains, and many of the peaks 
cannot be less than 24,000 feet high. Some of the 
high peaks seemed to smoke ; and at first I thought 
