stones, and I met with many plants scattered about, of
which none but the very earliest were yet in flower. Two
or three species only could be identified with the plants
of the Indian side of the pass; the majority were quite
different. Lithospermum JJuchromon of Royle, and the
Parry a first seen the day before, were among the commonest
species; several other Cruciferce were also seen,
as well as a Gentiana, one or two Astragali, a species of
Meconopsis, a small Gagea, Ephedra, and Nepeta glu-
tinosa. Species of Artemisia, Cynoglossum and other
JBoraginece, of Polygonum and Rheum, though not in
flower, were recognizable, but the greater number of
plants were only beginning to vegetate. As I descended,
a few shrubs of Lonicera hispida and of Rosa Wehhiana
(the Tibet rose) were met with, but all very stunted.
The valley continued to descend, and the snow soon
receded to some distance up the mountain-sides, At last
I came to a single habitation, a little monastery inhabited
by one Lama, and built under the precipitous
rocks on the left side of the valley. A very small patch
of cultivation lay on the bank of the stream just below
i t ; the corn was not more than two or three inches
high. A little further on, the road suddenly turned into
a much larger and more open valley, watered by a considerable
stream, which ran through a wide, open, gravelly
channel, from which long and very slightly inclined gravelly
slopes extended on both sides to the base of the
mountains. The stream proved to be the western branch
of the Zanskar river. To the north-westward of the
point where I entered its valley, its upward course was
visible for eight or ten miles, all the way through an
open gravelly plain. Several villages and a good deal
of cultivation were seen in that direction, on the slopes
descending from the mountains.
My road lay to the eastward down the valley, partly
through cultivated lands, partly over barren gravelly or
stony plains, and often over grassy meadows on the banks
of the river. Wheat, barley, and peas were the crops
cultivated, all only a few inches in height. Round
the fields and on the banks of the water-courses a luxuriant
herbage was beginning to spring up, which contrasted
strongly with the sterility of the stony plains.
The fields were quite flat and generally unenclosed, the
valley being too level to require terracing; small canals
conducted water for irrigation to every field. The villages
wrere all small and bare, and during the day I saw
only a single tree—a small poplar in a garden or enclosure
at one of the last villages through which I passed,
before halting for the day. I encamped, after a march
of at least twelve miles, near the village of Markim, on
a fine grassy plain close to the river, the banks of which
were lined by a few bushes of Myricaria and Hippophae.
The elevation of my tent was 12,100 feet.
In the valley of the Ghenab the prevailing rock had
everywhere been clay-slate, but where I turned up the
valley of the Butna it was replaced by gneiss, which
continued to form the whole mountain-mass on both
sides of the Umasi pass, so far as I could infer the
nature of their structure from the boulders brought
down by glaciers. On the earlier part of this day s
journey, the gneiss gave place again to mica-slate and
clay-slate; but in the wide valley, where no rock was