For this reason the main road or highway through
Kunawar crosses to the right bank of the Sutlej, a short
way above Nachar. At starting, therefore, on the morning
of the 14th of August, we began to descend towards
the river. For about a mile and a half the descent was
very gentle, through a good deal of cultivation. There
were many fruit-trees, but very little natural wood; a
few horse-chesnut trees were observed, and occasionally
a scattered deodar, spruce, or pine. On the earlier part
of the road the pines were P. excelsa, but lower down
that tree gave place to P. longifolia. After a mile and
a half, the descent became more rapid, over a rocky and .
bad road, which continued to the bridge, distant three
miles from Nachar. On the bare, arid, and rocky hills
between Nachar and the river, several very striking novelties
were observed in the vegetation; but as the road
had for several days been at a higher level, and generally
among dense forest, it is not improbable that many of
these new plants may occur on the lower parts of the
hills, in the immediate vicinity of the river, farther to
the westward. The new species were in all about six
in number, of which three—two species of Pci/pJin.6 and
an olive—were very abundant, and therefore prominent
features in the appearance of the country.
At the point where the bridge has been thrown across,
the river Sutlej has an elevation, by the determination of
Captain Gerard, of 5200 feet above the level of the sea. Its
bed and the banks on both sides are very rocky and bare,
and the width of the stream not more than seventy feet.
The bridge is of that kind called by the mountaineers
sanga, which means a wooden bridge or bridge of planks,
contrasted with jhula, a rope-bridge. On the left bank
the pier of the bridge is formed by an isolated rock, separated
from the rocky banks by an ancient bed of the
river, now quite dry, but worn smooth by the action of
the current. This former channel is stated by Gerard
to have been blocked up by a fall of rocks from above;
previous to which occurrence, the isolated rock must have
stood as an island in the centre of the stream. The
construction of the bridge is singular, but simple, and
only adapted for very little traffic. Six stout trunks of
trees are laid alongside of one another on the pier, so
that the end towards the river is a little higher than the
other; above these are placed in succession two similar
layers of trunks, each projecting several feet beyond the
one below it, and the whole of these are kept in position
by a substantial stone building, through which the roadway
runs. A similar structure on the opposite bank
narrows the distance to be spanned, at the same time
that it affords support to the central portion of the
bridge, which consists of two strong pine-trees fifty feet
in length, placed about two feet apart, and supporting
stout cross planking. The whole forms a bridge quite
strong enough to support foot-passengers or lightly laden
horses, the only purpose for which it is required.
In spite of the considerable elevation which the Sutlej
valley had now acquired, a number of plants of tropical
character occurred in the neighbourhood of the Wangtu
bridge. These were mostly common grasses and Cype-
racece, Polycarpaea corymbosa, Achyranthes aspera, and
a few other species, all common mountain-plants at low
elevations, which here, from the great heat caused by the
p 2