The vegetation of Lower Nubra had so entirely disappeared, that I could form scarcely any idea of its character; but, as the general aspect of the country was unaltered, I had no reason to look for any change. In the gravelly bed of the river, bushes of Myricaria and Tamarix were common; thickets of Hippophaë, loaded with very acid yellow berries, lined the watercourses, forming an impenetrable barrier. Little bushes of Artemisia, Lycium, Perowskia, and Ephedra, were also occasionally seen on the rocks, but the herbaceous vegetation had quite withered away. In the villages, the cultivated trees were also rapidly shedding their leaves; constant night frosts, and frequent falls of snow on the mountain-sides, having so far reduced the temperature that winter was evidently at hand.
NARROW GORGE.
October, 1847.
Below the village of Unmaru, the width of the valley had so much diminished that many of the lateral spurs advanced close to the river. Several of these prominent spurs consisted of trap rocks, various forms of basalt and greenstone occurring, with not unfrequently veins of coarse serpentine. Stratified rocks, however, still continued, but the hard black slate was often with difficulty distinguishable from the basalt.
My encamping ground at Kuru was on the north side of the river, and close to the gorge into which the Shayuk disappeared among rocks of black slate, which rise almost perpendicularly from the river. A small tributary, descending from the north, ran parallel and close to the rugged mountain spur which formed the barrier of the valley; and immediately above, a deep bay or recess in the mountains was entirely filled with beds of loose sand, resting on the alluvial clay formation. The appearance of the place was altogether most singular. Much of the light sandy beds were evidently of very recent origin, probably referable to the great flood five years before, at which time the waters, suddenly checked at the gorge, after having spread out ad libitum in the open valley of Nubra, rose to a height of not less than fifty feet above their usual level, and required several days to subside. The beds of clay under the loose sand were all stratified, and were, no doubt, referable to the same lacustrine formation as the fossiliferous beds observed higher up the valley of the Shayuk.
WARIS RAVINE.
October, 1847.
From Kuru there is no road along the bank of the river, the rocks being on both sides too precipitous to permit of a passage, and the river too deep to be forded. In winter, when the river is frozen, travellers are able to continue their course along its bed by proceeding on the ice in those places where the steepness of the rocks obstructs the passage; but at other seasons it is necessary to make a long détour, and to ascend a lateral ravine for eight miles before a point is reached where the steep ridge is capable of being crossed. Leaving Kuru on the morning of the 26th of October, I encamped at the village of Waris, elevated 12,400 feet, among a few fields from which the crops had long been cleared. The few huts which formed the village contained no inhabitants, being abandoned, as soon as the harvest has been reaped and housed, for the more temperate climate of the river valley.
The ravine by which I ascended from Kuru was very narrow and rugged. The road generally lay at a considerable height on the steep slopes of the hills, but three times crossed the stream; once by a natural bridge composed of a huge mass of rock lying across a very narrow part of the stream, where it had worn out in the solid rock a channel not more than from three to twelve feet wide. The steep sloping banks of the ravine were usually shingly and devoid of vegetation; but on the margin of the little stream there were a good many shrubs, principally willows, and occasionally the cordate-leaved poplar so commonly cultivated in the Tibetan villages, which here appeared quite indigenous.
The geological structure of this rocky ravine was very intricate, from the great mass of igneous rock, granite, greenstone, and amygdaloid, which everywhere occurred. A very hard conglomerate, similar in character to that of the upper Indus and of the Giah ravine, was also observed at intervals, alternating with very highly metamorphic slates. After about five miles, the road left the main ravine to ascend into a lateral branch, much more steep than the former. Here masses of alluvial conglomerate of great thickness rested on the sides of the mountains, many hundred feet above the bed of the stream. During the day the weather had been very cloudy and threatening, and a little snow fell in the afternoon at my encamping ground at Waris.
PASS ABOVE WARIS.
October, 1847.
During the night more snow fell, and on the morning of the 27th it was four or five inches deep. From my camp I ascended at once, very steeply, to the crest of the ridge on the left, which I then followed in a succession of undulations in a westerly direction. As soon as I had gained the summit, a reach of the Shayuk was seen, distant perhaps a mile and a half, flowing among steep black rocks, with here and there banks of gravel at the bends. The view from the ridge was very striking, the dark colour of the rocks below contrasting strongly with the snowy whiteness of the upper parts of the mountains, which, on the south side of the Shayuk, rise very abruptly to a height of perhaps 18,000 feet.