The inhabitants were busy with the operations of harvest. A coarse knife or rude sickle was employed to cut the wheat and barley as close to the ground as possible; they were then tied into large bundles, each sufficient for one load, which were carried (usually by women) to the threshing-floors, not without considerable loss, from the ripeness of the ears and the great bulk of the loads, which were rubbed against every obstacle, particularly the narrow walls of the pathways between the fields. The grain was trodden out of the ear by cattle and asses, all muzzled, on small threshing-floors made of clay beaten hard. It was then winnowed, by being gently shaken out of flat vessels held as high as possible above the ground.
On the 15th of September I left Le for Kashmir. For five days my route was the same as that by which I had travelled in July. On the fourth day I reached Kalatze on the Indus, and on the 19th of September I encamped at the village of Lama-Yuru, close to which the road from Zanskar joins that along which I proposed to travel towards Dras. In the valley of the Indus a great part of the vegetation was already destroyed by the night frosts; Chenopodiaceæ were now the most numerous family, and these were rapidly ripening their seeds. In the narrow ravine of the Wandla river, on the ascent to Lama-Yuru, I found a few plants indicative of lower and hotter regions than those in which I had lately been travelling: a little wiry Lactuca with decurrent leaves, a spathulate-leaved Statice, and a small Hyoscyamus, all plants of the neighbourhood of Iskardo, were those which I noted.
PHATU PASS.
September, 1848.
On the 20th of September I crossed the Phatu pass, stated by Moorcroft to be 14,000 feet above the sea, but which Major Cunningham has ascertained to be only about 13,500 feet. The discrepancy is probably owing to some error in Moorcroft's manuscripts, from which the elevations given in his work were calculated by Professor Wilson. In the neighbourhood of Lama-Yuru lacustrine clay occurs in great abundance, and the ascent to the summit of this pass was gentle, up a gravelly valley, which was full of alluvium, almost to the very summit. The pass did not nearly attain the elevation requisite for alpine vegetation, still the flora was a good deal altered; two large-flowered thistles, Caragana versicolor, and several species of Umbelliferæ were observed, none of which had occurred in the hills to the north of the Indus; the prickly Statice was also common, but the Chenopodiaceæ of the Indus valley had entirely disappeared. The descent along the Kanji river to Karbu, at which I encamped, was long and gradual, down a wide valley skirted by gently sloping hills, which, at some distance on the left, rose into high mountains, but on the right attained only a moderate elevation, the Indus being at no great distance. Alluvium occurred throughout the descent, latterly indurated into a coarse conglomerate.
NAMIKA PASS.
September, 1848.
From Karbu I marched on the 21st to Molbil, crossing the Namika pass. The previous night had been very threatening, with violent wind, and at daybreak all the hills around were covered with snow; it was still snowing slightly, but none lay in the valley, and before nine o'clock it cleared, and the remainder of the forenoon was tolerably fine. For two miles I followed the banks of the Kanji river; afterwards the road turned to the left to ascend a clayey valley, to the rounded summit of a ridge separating that river from the Pashkyum on the left. The pass has been determined by Major Cunningham, who crossed it in October, 1847, to be 12,900 feet above the sea. The descent was long, but not rapid after the first mile. The upper part was desert, but lower down villages were frequent and cultivation extensive. At first the rocks were clay-slate, but these were replaced in the lower part by a hard limestone; alluvium was everywhere plentiful, forming, near Molbil, table-topped platforms of indurated conglomerate, horizontally stratified, and faced towards the stream by scarped cliffs. The afternoon was again stormy, and a good deal of rain fell during the night.
PASHKYUM.
September, 1848.
Next day I made a long march to Pashkyum, following the course of the river of that name. The descent was very gradual, and the road varied much in character, the valley being sometimes open, at other times narrow and rocky. The villages increased in numbers as the elevation diminished, and latterly for several miles cultivation was continuous. Pashkyum is not more than 8600 feet above the sea, and accordingly the season was much less advanced than it had been three and four thousand feet higher, the weather being much milder, and the summer heat no doubt much more considerable than in the neighbourhood of Le. The crops had long been cut, except the buckwheat, the fields of which were however quite ripe; the plants were being plucked up by the roots and laid down separately in the fields to dry, previous to removal to the threshing-floor.
A remarkable change had taken place in the appearance of the country during this day's journey. The banks of the river were frequently shaded with immense willows, and the trees of the cultivated lands were numerous and of great size. Many new forms of plants were also seen, though the general character of the flora was unaltered. Shrubby Artemisiæ were extremely plentiful, and the Perowskia, Ballota, Echinops, and Iris of the Indus valley were very abundant. The new plants were all species of Kashmir or Iskardo, such as Verbascum Thapsus, Lappa, Valeriana, Swertia, and Gentiana Moorcroftiana. Trifolium repens and fragiferum grew in the pastures close to the river, and tropical species of Setaria and Amaranthus were common weeds in the corn-fields.
SINGULAR SANDSTONE FORMATION.
September, 1848.