501 
1862 .] Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. 
reason to do, and had I not seen them myself, I could never have 
credited the possibility of any solidungulate animal getting over places 
which they certainly had done, and though convinced of the fact, can¬ 
not understand liow these donkeys get over spots which taxed a man’s 
powers to climb. On the march saw many traces of bears, but none 
recent, and judged therefrom that their food chiefly consists of roots? 
grasses, and vegetable matters. Around the camping ground, which 
is a mere sheepfold in the mountains, gathered a little rhubarb, small 
and stringy, and along the stream and on the hill side remarked 
poplar trees and birches. 
August 2nd, Largoo .—Glacier at the foot of the Manirang pass. 
Camp 15521* feet. The road lies up the course of the stream which 
descends from the Manirang pass, and is often rather difficult, from 
crossing piles of loose stones and coarse gravelly debris precipitated 
from the hills adjoining it. Snow bridges span the stream in many 
places at the foot of the pass, and eventually the road fairly enters on 
the glacier. 
It requires a little reflection here to realize the fact that one is 
actual^ on a glacier, as nothing is seen around but huge piles of 
shingle and rocky fragments heaped up in an irregular manner, like 
some Brobdignagian ploughed field. Long ravines and somewhat 
anomalous looking pits or depressions are everywhere met with, and 
occasionally pools of water, which, on closer inspection, are seen to be 
encircled with walls of ice—not the crystal product, but a dirty look¬ 
ing mass embedding large stones and coarser mud and gravel, and at 
the surface completely covered up by rocky debris melted out of it. 
Pitched my tent on a small patch of green sward a few yards square, 
a little oasis in the midst of an Arctic Sahara. No wood was of 
course procurable, save a scanty supply I had brought up with me ; but 
in spite of the cold, I enjoyed greatly the grandeur of the scene, encir¬ 
cled by snowy peaks which seemed to impend over my little camp and 
among which the avalanches might occasionally be heard crashing 
and booming with a roar surpassing the heaviest artillery. 
A little below the camping ground I met a European de¬ 
scending the pass from the North, attended by a few coolies, and 
we of course halted and “liquored” together and held a brief con¬ 
versation as to our respective routes, game, provisions, &c., with 
regard t$ which last, he gave me to understand that I had been absurd- 
