after sunset, the distance from the top of the pass being
about ten miles.
While travelling at these great elevations the weather
was uniformly serene and beautiful. There was but
little wind, and the sky was bright and cloudless. At
night the cold was severe, and the edges of the streams
were in the morning always frozen. On my return towards
Sassar I found that the bright sunny weather
which had continued since the 16th, had made a great
alteration in the state of the stream in the wide gravelly
valley along which the road ran. It was now impetuous
and muddy, increasing considerably towards the afternoon,
when it ran in several channels, which were not
always easily fordable. In some places the gravel was
throughout the whole width of the plain saturated with
water, and gave way under the feet, so that it became
necessary to ascend on the stony sloping banks on
one side or other, instead of following the centre of the
valley. At Murgai, on the evening of the 23rd of
August, just after sunset, I felt three slight shocks of an
earthquake. On that day the weather again became
dull, and on the morning of the 24th there was a slight
fall of snow for about an hour.
The remarkable open plain to the south of the Karakoram
pass occupies a deep concavity in the great chain
of the Kouenlun, which there appears to form a curve,
the convexity of which looks northward. The main range
to the eastward was distinctly visible, forming a range
of snowless, but certainly very lofty, black peaks beyond
the sources of the most eastern branch of the Shayuk;
while the heavily-snowed mountains, the summits of
which were seen further east, were probably also a part
of the axis of the chain, which apparently bends round
the sources of the river of Khoten, or of some stream
draining the northern flanks of the Kouenlun. To the
westward, no peaks rose behind the snowy ridge which
terminated the western branch of the Shayuk a little
west of the Karakoram pass, beyond which the surface
probably dips, while the axis of the Kouenlun bends to
the southward, towards the glaciers of the Nubra river.
In crossing the open plain on my return towards Sassar,
I had the splendid snowy peaks to the south-west
always in view, and was able to form a tolerable estimate
of their appearance and elevation. The range was very
heavily snowed, and from the lateness of the season but
little additional thaw could be expected. What seemed
the highest peak was very near, and its position could be
determined by bearings with little risk of error. It rose
abruptly in the midst of a great mass of snow, which
filled the hollows and slopes of the range all around.
The surface of the plain over which I was travelling
sloped very gently up to the westward, and partly concealed
the lower edge of the perpetual snow on the
mountains behind, the limit of which was, I think, between
17,500 and 18,000 feet. To the northward and
eastward the snow-line was certainly much higher. Here
and there, where there was shade, there were patches
below 18,000 feet, but even up to 20,000 feet there
was no continuous snow. As the source of the snowfall
on these mountains is no doubt the Indian Ocean
to the south-west, the gradual rise of the snow-level in
advancing north-east, and the occurrence of the highest