NAKO.
August, 1847.
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; the species was the common one, not H. Ægiceras, 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 Potentillæ, 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.
BUDDHIST TEMPLES.
August, 1847.
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 decide. It is impossible, however, to avoid being struck by the coincidence between these physical and moral changes in the human race, and the gradual alteration in the forms of the vegetable world, which are observable as we advance from a wet to a dry climate.
PORGYUL
August, 1847.
From Nako we proceeded, on the 26th of August, nearly due north, to Chango, about ten miles up the Piti valley. Nako is situated on the shoulder of the great mountain Porgyul, which rises to a height of 10,000 feet above that village, and Chango is at the very extremity of a long spur given off by that mountain further east: it is therefore separated from the Nako spur by a valley of considerable size, which descends abruptly towards the Piti river. Our road lay in a long sweep round the deep bay formed by this valley, at an elevation not lower than that of Nako, crossing in the most receding part a foaming torrent which descends from the perpetual snows of the mountain behind. Half a mile from Nako, and scarcely lower than that place, is a patch of cultivation, watered, as I was surprised to find, by a conduit brought more than a mile along the side of the hill from the stream which occupies the mid-valley; the water of which was collected into several ponds, one above another, in which it was kept in reserve till required for irrigation. The crops cultivated were buckwheat and a species of Brassica, both in flower. A number of poplars and willows were planted along the stream, but no fruit-trees.
ANGULAR BOULDERS.
August, 1847.
Beyond this cultivated tract, the road, till we reached Chango, was entirely barren. For several miles we continued to pass through a most extraordinary accumulation of transported blocks, scattered irregularly on the gently sloping sides of the mountains. They covered a very large area, and occurred in such almost incredible profusion, that the road seemed to lie in a hollow among fragments of rock on all sides. They were all angular; and at so considerable an elevation as 12,000 feet, I have now no hesitation in referring them to glacier action. The rock in situ was clay-slate, with copious granite veins, and the boulders were in general the same. In one place, however, a dark mica-slate, with large crystals of cyanite, was the predominating rock of the erratic blocks, which no doubt might have been traced to its source in the ravine above, as I nowhere saw it in situ during the day.
After passing the torrent which occupies the centre of the valley, the road very gradually approaches the Piti river, from which it had at first receded considerably. We could now observe that the mountains which overhung the river in this part of its course were much less precipitous, and the valley wider and more open, than around Lio. Alluvial beds of great thickness everywhere rested on the ancient rocks, assuming the most diversified forms, but in general thicker and higher on the sides of the hills, at some distance from the river, than in the centre of the valley. About a mile and a half from Chango, the road began to descend rather rapidly along a dry water-course filled with huge boulders. It then crossed a stream, which had cut for itself a very deep channel through the alluvial conglomerate, and ascended slightly to the village of Chango. Close to the last stream was a bed of very fine clay, which had a thickness of at least twenty-five feet, and did not appear to contain any stones, pebbles, or fragments of rock. This clay had quite a different appearance from the alluvial conglomerate, which covered it, without appearing to pass into it. It occurred extensively in several places in the neighbourhood of Chango, and had entirely the appearance of having been deposited in a very tranquil lake, while the alluvium which rested upon it, and, therefore, was of more recent formation, contained so many fragments of rock, all seemingly angular, that its origin could scarcely be assigned to deposition under water, unless under some very peculiar circumstances.
CHANGO.
August, 1847.