northward, The
surface is very-
uneven, being
worn into hollows,
and presenting
ridges
a and hillocks of
| sand and gravel, >^ with small black
| tufts of rhodoes
dendron. Enor-
^ mous granite
Oa boulders were
« scattered over
<h1 the surface; one
| of the ordinary
| size was seventy
^ feet in girth, and
§ fifteen feet above
« the ground, into 5<
* which it had Oa partly sunk.
From the
P southern end I
took sketches of
the flanks of the
valleys east and
west. The river
was about 400
feet below me,
and flowed in a
little flat lake-bed; other terraces skirted it, cut, as
it were, from the side of that I was on. On the
opposite flank of the valley were several terraces, of
Which the highest appeared to tally with the level I
occupied, and the lowest was raised very little above
the river; none were continuous for any distance, but
the upper one, in particular, could be most conspicuously
traced up and down the main valley, whilst,
.on looking across to the eastern valley, a much higher,
but less distinctly marked one, appeared on it. The
road to the pass lay west-north-west up the north bank
of the Yangma on the great terrace; for two miles it
was nearly level along the gradually narrowing shelf,
at times dipping into the deep gulleys formed by
torrents from the mountains; and as the terrace disappeared,
or melted, as it were, into the rising floor
of the valley, the path descended upon the lower and
smaller shelf.
X came suddenly upon a flock of wild sheep,
feeding on scanty tufts of sedge and grass; there were
twenty-five of these enormous animals, of whose
dimensions the term sheep gives no id ea ; they are
very long-legged, stand as high as a calf, and have
horns so large that the fox is said to take up his abode
in their hollows, when detached and bleaching, on the
barren mountains of Tibet. Though very wild, I could
easily have killed a couple had I had my gun, but I
had found it necessary to reduce . my party so uncompromisingly,
that X could not afford a man both for my
gun and instruments, and had sent the former back to
Dorjiling, with Mr, Hodgson’s bird-stuffers, who had