The slopes, as we ascended, were covered with boulders
of granite in countless profusion, and the vegetation
was extremely scanty, "Ephedra being the most abundant
plant observed. On the upper part of the ascent the
road crossed a little streamlet, which was conducted in
an artificial channel to irrigate a few fields of wheat.
The margins of this little stream, and a belt a few feet
in width on both sides, where the ground was swampy,
were covered with a dense thicket of Hippophae and rosebushes,
among which grew thickly and luxuriantly a
scandent Clematis, and Hubia cordifolia, mint, dock,
and thistles. The number of species altogether was
scarcely more than a dozen, but the brilliant green
formed so delightful a contrast with the prevailing monotony,
that what in a more fertile country would have
been passed as a mere thicket of thorns, to my eyes
appeared a most beautiful grove of graceful shrubs; and
I lingered in the swampy ground, till I had traversed
it repeatedly in every direction, and completely exhausted
the flora.
Nako is a smaller village than Lio, and from its elevation
(12,000 feet) has no fruit-trees ; but at the base of
the cultivation, which is extensive, there was a copse of
willows and poplars. The predominant crop was barley,
now quite ripe, and being cut j the species was the common
one, not II. AEgiceras, but the ears were very short,
and the return must, I should think, have been very
small. There was abundance of water, which ran in
every direction through the fields. The little streamlets
had a narrow belt of green on their margins, consisting
of small grasses, several gentians, and Potentillce, one of
which I could not distinguish from P. anserina, a Polygonum
very like P. viviparum, and, most remarkable of
all, a small orchideous plant, which seemed to be a
species of Herminium.
At Nako, we had a most satisfactory proof of the
little estimation in which the lamas, or priests of the
Buddhist religion, hold their religious buildings, the
apartments furnished to us in the village being the
different parts of the temple, surrounded -with full-sized
figures of the different incarnations of Buddha, in sitting
posture, each with his hands in the position which
is conventionally used to indicate the individual. The
remarkable forms and system of the Buddhist religion,
as practised in Kunawar and Ladak, have been so often
and accurately described, that it would be useless for
me to attempt to give any account of what I could,
from want of previous knowledge, very imperfectly understand,
and from my other occupations scarcely at all
inquire into. The gradual transition, in ascending the
Sutlej, from Hinduism to Buddhism, is very remarkable,
and not the less so because it is accompanied by an
equally gradual change in the physical aspect of the inhabitants,
the Hindus of the lower Sutlej appearing to
pass by insensible gradations as we advance from village
to village, till at last we arrive at a pure Tartar population.
The people of upper Piti have quite the Tartar
physiognomy, the small stature and stout build of the
inhabitants of Ladak, to whom also they closely approximate
in dress. To what extent mere climatic influences
may cause these differences, and how far they
depend on an intermixture of races, I do not pretend to