rainy season. The only exception occurred while we
were encamped at Changar, on the lower part of the
Parang river, about the 29th of August, when the sky
was for two days very cloudy, and on one night it rained
gently for nearly half an hour. The clouds were, however,
high, and never dense, and the unsettled state of
the atmosphere was of very short continuance. While
it lasted, it was accompanied by violent wind, very irregular
in direction.
In every part of Piti we found the margins of springs,
and the grassy turf which grew on low swampy spots
along the river, covered with a saline incrustation, in the
form of a dry efflorescence, which encrusted the blades
of grass. It appeared to be confined to the vicinity of
water, the barren rocky tracts being destitute of it.
This saline matter, as elsewhere in Tibet, consists of ses-
quicarbonate of soda, and, as a consequence of the abundance
of that alkali, soda-producing plants were common,
especially Chenopodiaceee, among which the common
Salsola Kali was very abundant.
The district of Piti, which was formerly almost independent,
but paid tribute to, or exchanged presents with,
all the Tibetan countries in its neighbourhood, namely,
with Garu, Ladak, and Lahul, as well as with Kunawar,
followed in 1846 the fortunes of Lahul in being transferred
to British rule. It is a very thinly populated
valley, the villages being small and distant, and the
arable tracts of no great extent. The mountains on its
southern border, by which it is separated from Kunawar,
are so very elevated that they entirely intercept all
access of humidity from the districts to the northward of
them, and render the climate entirely rainless. The
houses are in consequence very generally built of unburnt
bricks, made of the fine lacustrine clay so common in
the valleys, and their flat roofs are thickly covered with
a layer of the same material.
K