Western Himalaya and Tibet / A Narrative of a Journey Through the Mountains of Northern India During the Years 1847-8

by Thomas Thomson

The road did not descend at once to the level of the river, but, turning abruptly to the left, proceeded along a platform of alluvium, at least a thousand feet in thickness, for more than a mile, before it descended, which it did at last very abruptly down a steep sandy slope. The mass of alluvium was, in many places, almost pure sand, but in general many pebbles and boulders were mixed with it. Towards the river it presented scarped cliffs, in which its composition was well seen.

POPULUS EUPHRATICA.
October, 1847.

The Shayuk, where I descended to it, flowed through a wide gravelly plain, varying in breadth from one to two miles, and quite destitute of vegetation. Rocky spurs of black slate and conglomerate, with many granite veins, projecting from the mountains on the south, occasionally narrowed the valley, while the recesses were generally filled with a mass of alluvium. The river was occasionally divided into several branches. In some of the recesses small trees of a peculiar species of poplar (P. Euphratica) were not uncommon, growing in pure sand. This tree is remarkable for its extended distribution. Originally discovered on the banks of the Euphrates, it has been found by Griffith, and more recently by Dr. Stocks and others, to be abundant on the banks of the Indus, in Sind and Multan. It occurs also at intervals along the valley of the Indus, within the mountains, but appears to be far from common, and to confine itself to hot sandy places. In several parts of Nubra it is common enough, but only, so far as I have observed, on the south side of the Shayuk. This poplar is also remarkable for the very changeable shape of its leaves, which vary from broadly deltoid and coarsely toothed, to narrow-linear and quite entire. The leaves of the full-grown tree are generally broad and much toothed, while young plants have very narrow leaves; the shoots of pollarded plants, which are common, the tree being much used for fuel, are also narrow.

After proceeding parallel to the river for six or seven miles, I crossed to the right bank. The stream was undivided, and about a hundred yards broad. It had a considerable velocity, and was about three feet deep in the centre. Its bed was full of large waterworn boulders and gravel, and the banks on both sides were, for a great distance from the river, of similar structure, and so little elevated above its surface, that a very slight rise of the water would have been sufficient to submerge them.

From the village of Tsatti, at which I encamped on the 14th of October, I followed the course of the Shayuk to its junction with a large stream descending from the north, which, from the name of the district in which the junction is situated, is commonly called the Nubra river. Thence I ascended the latter stream for about twenty miles, with the intention of making an attempt to penetrate to the north-east, across the mountains to the Nubra Chu of Vigne; but the lateness of the season, and especially the occurrence of several falls of snow, which extended down the mountain slopes almost as far as the plain, induced me to place reliance on the assurances of the people of the valley, that the difficulties of the road would be quite insurmountable.

DISTRICT OF NUBRA.
October, 1847.

The district of Nubra includes the whole course of the Shayuk river, from its great bend to the eastward of the point where I joined it below Digar, till it again contracts nine or ten miles below the village of Unmaru; and also the lower part of the valley of the Nubra river, as far up, indeed, as population and cultivation extend. The place of junction of the two rivers is elevated, according to my observation of the boiling-point of water, about 10,600 feet above the level of the sea. This may be considered as the mean elevation of the whole district; for the cultivated tracts nowhere rise to any height above the bed of the rivers, which have everywhere a very gentle and apparently uniform inclination.

DESCRIPTION OF NUBRA.
October, 1847.

The valley of the Shayuk is widest at the point of its junction with the Nubra river. At this place the level plain, including the gently sloping alluvium on each side, has a breadth of about six miles. The width of the valley gradually diminishes as we recede from the centre, the mountains encroaching more and more, till at last they hem in the river, leaving no space for villages or cultivation, and the valley ceases to be inhabited. The centre of the plain is uniformly occupied by a flat gravelly expanse, one to three miles in width, scarcely raised above the surface of the river, which, when flooded, covers a great part of it. On both sides of this gravelly bed, low platforms of alluvium, in the form of triangles, with their apices resting on the mountain ravines, slope very gently towards the base of mountains, which rise abruptly and precipitously on both sides of the valley, to a height of three or four thousand feet. Some of the more projecting spurs, even where the width of the valley is greatest, advance so far into the open plain as to abut upon the river and compel the traveller to ascend their slopes, in order to cross them in travelling from village to village.

The gravelly plain over which the Shayuk flows, is usually quite devoid of vegetation. A few scattered bushes of Tamarix and Myricaria appear, indeed, near its junction with the Nubra river, but further up the gravel is absolutely bare: in this it contrasts strongly with similar portions in the valley of the Nubra river, which are densely wooded. The cause of this difference seems to lie in the frequent floods which have, at different periods, devastated the whole course of the Shayuk valley, from the glaciers of Sassar. These floods, which appear to be due to the blocking-up of the upper course of the river by the ice, have been most destructive to the prosperity of the valley.