was a rapid stream, varied from thirty or forty to a hundred
feet. Platforms of alluvium, almost level-topped,
and often attaining a thickness of a hundred feet, were
interposed between the river and the mountains, which,
still composed of highly inclined strata of conglomerate
and its associated rocks, advanced in a succession of spurs
towards the centre of the valley. These platforms were
quite bare of vegetation, a few tufts of a prickly Echi-
nops being the only plant worthy of note which I observed.
No villages, were passed till we reached Marsi-
lang, at which we encamped after a journey of about ten
miles. Here there was very extensive cultivation on the
surface of the platform, on both sides of a deep ravine,
cut in the alluvium by a considerable stream, which descended
from the west. The plantations of willow and
poplar were very luxuriant. The willows were planted
in rows, and were frequently pollarded, their twigs being
in great demand for baskets and other useful purposes
in so treeless a country. When allowed to grow their
full size, they spread much, and attain a length of upwards
of thirty feet. The cultivated willows of Tibet are
mostly European forms; Salix fragilis and S. alba are
the most common. The poplars are of two sorts : one
a spreading tree with large cordate leaves, which was
first seen in Upper Kunawar, and is common in all the
Tibetan villages, up to the highest limit of tree- cultivation
; it is quite identical with Populus balsamifera,
which I cannot distinguish in the herbarium from P. lau-
rifolia, of Ledebour. The other, which I had not before
seen in Tibet, was a tall, erect, and slender tree, with
much darker foliage and smaller leaves; it seems, so far
as my specimens enable me to decide, to be the common
black poplar {P. nigra) of Europe.
At Marsilang the Indus is crossed by a good wooden
bridge, thirty-four paces in length, which enables its inhabitants
to communicate with the large villages and
extensive cultivated tracts on the east bank of the river.
As soon as we left the cultivated lands of Marsilang, on
the morning of the 1st of October, we found ourselves
again on a platform of alluvium.; but after a few miles we
reached another village, with extensive cultivation, and
on the latter part of the day’s journey passed through a
succession of villages separated by gradually shorter intervals
of unprofitable and barren land. These cultivated
tracts were everywhere well irrigated; indeed,
every spot, where irrigation was easy of execution, seemed
to be under cultivation. Each village had its plantation
of poplars and willows, not, however, so plentiful as at
Marsilang. The grain had everywhere been cut and
housed, the operations of harvest being seemingly quite
at an end. The whole of this richly-cultivated district
is called Chashut.
Our journey of the 2nd of October was for about six
miles through an uninterrupted tract of cultivation, very
little elevated above the level of the river, the alluvial
platforms being here of inconsiderable thickness. The
direction of the valley was also much more westerly, and
the mountains on both sides had receded considerably
from the river, leaving an open plain of five or six miles
in width. Numerous irrigation channels intersected
the fields, which gradually, as we proceeded, united one
to another, till at last they all combined into one large