On the 15th of August I resumed my journey. The morning was misty, with a few flakes of snow at intervals, and the sky remained overcast all day, with high squalls of wind. My road lay across the Shayuk, but I found it necessary to ascend about half a mile on the high bank before I reached a place where it was possible to descend to its gravelly plain, which was more than half a mile wide, and quite destitute of any kind of vegetation. The river was running in several channels, with an average depth of about a foot and a half; in one place only it was as much as two feet. The current ran with considerable rapidity.
On the opposite side of the plain of the Shayuk, I entered an extremely narrow ravine, bounded by precipices of black slate, down which ran a small stream, which crossed at every turn of the ravine from one side to the other, generally close to the rocky wall, and had to be forded a great number of times. After a mile and a half, the road, suddenly quitting the ravine, turned to the right, and ascended by a steep pathway to a wide, very gently rising plain, bounded on both sides by snowy mountains. This plain was partly grassy, but mostly composed of hard dry clay. In a few spots where snow appeared recently to have lain, the clay was soft and treacherous, sinking under the feet. About a mile's walk over this plain brought me to the highest part of it, beyond which it began to slope to the eastward, at first very gently but afterwards more rapidly. Many large isolated boulders were observed on its surface. It was curious to observe that the gravel produced by the disintegration of the mountains (chiefly, I suppose, by snow-slips in winter) differed in colour on the two sides of the valley, and that the line of demarcation followed very closely the centre of the valley. The northern mountains, being granitic, produced a hard quartzy gravel, while those to the south, which were schistose, contributed a dark-coloured gravel of sharp slaty fragments. On the lower part of the descent, a small rivulet made its appearance in the centre of the plain, and I encamped, after nine and a half miles, close to an open valley of considerable size, whose course seemed to be south-east.
MURGAI.
August, 1848.
This encamping-ground is called by the Turki merchants Murgai, by the Tibetans, Murgo-Chumik; the former name being probably a corruption of the latter. It was the last place at which I was to expect a sufficiency of fuel, or even, with rare exceptions, of grass for my horse, which, though not often used, I was unwilling to leave behind, lest I should by any accident be disabled from walking. The temperature of boiling water here indicated an elevation of about 15,100 feet, but as the weather was stormy and threatening, this was probably several hundred feet more than the truth. A number of springs appeared to break out of the ground close to my tent, where there was a considerable extent of boggy pasture, much greener than is usual at so great an elevation. A few bushes of Myricaria elegans were the only shrubs, but tufts of Artemisia and Eurotia were sufficiently plentiful to produce an abundance of fuel. In the boggy meadow, a pretty little species of Primula was very abundant; the other plants observed were a white Pedicularis, two species of Triglochin, and some Carices and grasses.
The morning of the 16th of August was bright and beautiful, the clouds having been entirely dissipated during the night. The wide valley near which I was encamped descended, as I was informed, to the Shayuk, which it was said to join through a rocky gorge eight or ten miles lower down than Sassar. Along its course the merchants are in the habit of ascending at the season when the valley of the Shayuk is followed all the way from Nubra, which is only practicable in early spring and late in the autumn, at which times that river is fordable throughout. It is a fortunate circumstance for the trade that there is thus a choice of routes, for at these seasons the Sassar pass must be in a great measure blocked up with snow.
ASCENT OF MURGAI VALLEY.
August, 1848.
On my arrival at Murgai, I had observed that the mountains to the north were very precipitous, and had been puzzled to decide what direction the road might take. On starting, however, I found that it lay along the upward course of the stream which watered the valley before me, and which here issued from the mountains through a very narrow ravine with high precipices on both sides. At first I ascended to the top of a platform of conglomerate which lay at the base of the mountains. The ground was strewed with fragments of limestone, evidently derived from the mountains above; and about half a mile from camp I passed a calcareous spring which had deposited large quantities of tufa throughout the whole of the space between its source and the face of the precipice which overhung the river: the thickness of the incrustation was, in front of the cliff, from six to eight feet. A little further on, the road descended abruptly to the stream, and, after crossing it several times within a few hundred yards, ascended equally abruptly the steep stony slopes on its left bank, at a point where its course, which had previously been nearly north, turned rather suddenly to the eastward. On emerging from the ravine, two small glaciers came in sight almost directly opposite, in branches of a narrow and very deep gorge, which descended from the mountains to the north nearly in the original direction of the ravine. The road ascended to the height of at least 1000 feet, and then proceeded along the steep slopes, alternately ascending and descending over very stony ground, occasionally covered with loose limestone shingle. The stream was visible below, running through a narrow rocky fissure.
After about a mile and a half, the road again descended to the river, now a little wider, with a gravelly channel. Here I found that there were two roads. One of these, for loaded animals, ascended steeply on the north side, to the height of nearly 1000 feet, and again descended very abruptly. The other was in the bed of the stream, which was partially filled up with huge blocks of rock. The stream being almost dry, I took the lower road, which for pedestrians was only objectionable from its great roughness, and because it was necessary to cross the rivulet occasionally. After about a quarter of a mile, the ravine suddenly opened out into a gravelly plain nearly half a mile in width, traversed by numerous branches of the little stream: these were now almost dry, owing to the cloudy weather of the last few days having in a great measure stopped the melting of the glaciers by which they were supplied. Along this open plain I continued for nearly five miles. In one place only it contracted again for a few hundred yards into a gorge full of huge rocky masses heaped one on another, by which it was apparently quite blocked up; this however was avoided by a slight ascent among angular limestone fragments. On descending into the plain again, I observed a very small patch of grassy ground on a bank a few feet above the level of the stream, the only herbage seen during the day. About a mile further on I encamped, after a march of nine miles, on the south side of the plain, on a dry bank elevated four or five feet above its gravelly bed. There was a sudden change in the direction of the valley just at my encamping-ground, its further course being in a direction west of north. The elevation of my tent was very nearly 16,000 feet.
High, rugged, precipitous mountains, with snowy tops, rose on both sides of the road during the whole of this day's journey. The rock throughout the day was limestone, a few thin layers of slate excepted. It varied much in colour, but was generally very dark and highly crystalline, and often contained large masses of white calcareous spar. It was distinctly stratified, and occasionally exhibited obscure traces of what might be fossils, but which were too indistinct to be relied upon. The principal mass of snow seen was nearly due south of my encampment, but this was probably owing to the northerly exposure of the mountains on that side. The vegetation observed during the day was scanty in the extreme; Eurotia, a Saussurea with very viscid leaves, Oxytropis chiliophylla, and Biebersteinia odora being almost the only plants on the stony slopes and shingle during the first half of the way. On the gravelly plain there was no vegetation at all, but on its margins a few scattered plants were occasionally to be found, a Pyrethrum and two or three Cruciferæ being the species noted. The most remarkable plant observed during the day was a species of Alsine in dense hemispherical tufts, a foot or more in diameter. This plant (the moss of Moorcroft's visit to Garu, and of other travellers in and on the borders of Tibet) is a common Tibetan plant at very great elevations, 16,000 feet being perhaps not far from its lowest level[25].
On the 17th my road lay entirely along the gravelly plain in a direction always considerably to the west of north. The plain gradually narrowed as I advanced, and came to an end by contracting into a rocky ravine, just as I halted for the day. The mountains on the left were still very lofty; one glacier was seen on that side. On the right the mountains were lower and quite without snow, but extremely rugged and rocky. The slope of the valley was scarcely perceptible, but I found at the end of my day's journey, which amounted to twelve miles, that I had risen above 700 feet, the height of my encampment being a little more than 16,700 feet. The day was bright and sunny, and the stream, which, in the morning was quite insignificant, not three feet wide and scarcely ankle-deep, had increased much by the afternoon, and had become of a dirty red colour. It was twenty feet wide, and a foot and a half deep, where I crossed it just before halting. The vegetation was still more scanty than the day before, though most of the plants then noted were again seen occasionally. Small tufts of a little Stipa were not uncommon, constituting almost the only food for cattle, as patches of green grass, a few feet in diameter, were only seen twice during the day. Two very small Saussureæ formed dense tufted masses on the surface of the ground, and a little rose-coloured Astragalus spread itself prostrate over the gravel; indeed, this mode of growth seemed to be characteristic either of the climate or soil, as I found, though rarely, a species of Myricaria, with short thick wiry branches lying flat on the ground and spreading into patches a yard in diameter.