able stream issuing from beneath the perpendicular wall
by which it terminated.
Beyond the end of the glacier the valley continued very
steep. It was several hundred feet across, and covered
with loose stones of various sizes, over which the stream
ran in a wide shallow channel. Lower down, the bed of
the rivulet became contracted and rocky, and I crossed
to its right bank over a natural bridge consisting of one
large stone, ten or twelve feet long, which had fallen so
as to lie across the rocky channel. Advancing a few
paces beyond this bridge, I suddenly found myself at the
end of the ravine, and overlooking a wide valley many
hundred feet below, filled by an enormous glacier descending
from the left. This glacier was completely
covered with a mass of debris, which entirely concealed
the ice, and from its enormous dimensions must have
had a very distant source. I had no means at the time
of determining with accuracy either its width or depth,
nor do I find any estimate of it (except in superlatives)
in my notes made on the spot; I cannot, therefore, at
this distance of time, venture to give any exact dimensions
: I can only say that it much exceeded in size
any that I have before or since had an opportunity of
seeing.
It was just at the termination of the upper ravine that
the first traces of vegetation were observed: till reaching
this point the rocks and gravel had been quite bare.
The first plant observed was Primula minutissima; the
only other in flower was a large purple-coloured Crucifera
(a species of Parrya), but leaves of several others
were beginning to expand.
The road did not descend at once into the large valley,
but, turning abruptly to the right, ran parallel to the
glacier but high above it on the rocky mountain-side,
for nearly a mile, gradually descending so as to reach
the bottom of the valley just as the glacier ended. The
valley beyond its termination was wide and stony, and I
encamped among a number of very large boulders about
half a mile further on. The elevation of my camp was
13,800 feet, so that I had descended upwards of 4000
feet from thé top of the pass. I found that the inhabitants
on the two sides of the pass knew it by different
names, those of Padar, on the south, calling it the Bardar
pass, while to the Zanskaries it is known as Umasi La.
The morning of the 23rd of June was bright and clear,
but intensely frosty. The valley in which I was encamped
was enclosed by lofty mountains covered with
much snow, though on the level ground there were
only a few patches. The road lay down the valley,
which soon became narrow and stony, and the descent
somewhat rapid. The ground was at first quite bare,
and devoid of any sort of vegetation, except here and
there on the bank of the stream, where, close to the
water’s edge, a small patch of green was occasionally to
be seen. The narrowest parts of the ravine were occupied
by large snow-beds, entirely covering the rivulet,
but at intervals the valley widened out into a gravelly
plain. After about a mile, some vegetation began to
appear, and after four or five miles it became plentiful.
The banks of the stream, in the wide and gravelly parts,
were fringed with dwarf willows just bursting into leaf.
Primula minutissima was plentiful in the crevices of the