the course of the Indus was visible for some distance
above the junction of the river of Dras. It appeared
to be hemmed in very closely by rocky mountain spurs.
A good many patches of fine lacustrine clay were in
sight, on both banks.
From the same ridge, the view up the Dras valley
was very remarkable. The river of that name, which
formed many deep pools and was partially frozen, ran
at the bottom of a deep gorge. On the right bank
opposite to where I stood, a sheer precipice rose nearly
to a level with my eye. Between the ridge on which I
stood and the next in succession up the Dras valley,
an open and shallow valley, everywhere strewed with
enormous blocks of granite, sloped gently till it approached
the brink of the almost perpendicular cliffs
which overhang the Dras river. Crossing this open
valley, and the low spur beyond it, I encamped at a
small village called Ulding Thung, situated at the point
of junction of the Dras river, with a considerable tributary
descending from the west.
This little village occupies the gentle slope of a hillside,
but I encamped at the lowest part of it, which was
a small level plain surrounded by a number of giant
boulders, resting on the upper edge of a very steep slope,
and evidently, I think, of glacial origin. They were
quite angular, and not less than from twenty to thirty
feet in length.
On the slope of the hill above my encampment at
Ulding, the lacustrine clay formation again occurred in
great quantity. It was a very fine impalpable clay,
without fossils, and was here [as is not uncommon elsewhere)
dug out by the inhabitants for the purpose of
extracting its salt, which is obtained in a state of brine
by simply washing the clay with water. The elevation
of this clay formation was probably a good deal more
than 8500 feet, but not greater than that of many of
the hills and patches of similar deposit around Tarkata
in the valley of the Indus.
At daybreak on the morning of the 18th of December
I found that between three and four inches of snow had
fallen during the night. It had ceased snowing at
that time; and during the day, which was stormy and
often very cloudy, no more fell. There was a good
deal of thaw during the day, and towards evening the
snow, except in sheltered spots, was nearly melted. My
day’s journey was about ten miles, to the village of
Hardas, on the left bank of the Dras river \ passing
about two miles before the end of the march the river of
Kargyl or Pashkyum, a very large stream which descends
from the south-east. During the earlier part of this
day, the road was extremely bad. It descended from
Ulding abruptly to the level of the Dras river, to cross
at its point of junction a large tributary whose source
is in the eastern slopes of Deotsu. A succession of
steep ascents and descents followed for four or five miles,
throughout which distance the ravine through which the
river ran was narrow and precipitous and quite without
villages. Further up, the valley widened a little, the
mountains rose less steeply, and left narrow strips of
level ground along the margin of the stream.
Very early on the morning of the 11th of December,
it began again to snow, and continued with little inter