Where the valley is widest, the mountain ranges on both sides of the river are well seen. The range south of the Shayuk rises close at hand into a very steep mountain mass, now much snowed. A pass which leads from Khapalu to Kartash was (I was informed) already shut up by snow, and impracticable for travellers. To the north, up the wide valley of the Machulu, the mountains are more distant, and the main chain of the Muztagh is evidently fully in sight; the absence of hills close at hand allowing a considerable extent of it to be seen; it was very heavily snowed. The nearest, and apparently loftiest peak, bore N. 13 W. (Magn.) from Surmu.
KHAPALU.
November, 1847.
The principal villages of this open tract are Surmu and Khapalu, both on the south side of the Shayuk, and separated from one another by a high alluvial ridge, which rests on a bold scarped rock rising immediately out of the river. Surmu has a very long and narrow tract of cultivation, skirting the gravelly river-bed. It occupies the slopes of a projecting platform of alluvium of no great height. In this village many fields, on a level with the river, have evidently been destroyed by the flood of 1842, as fruit-trees were still standing among the gravel and shingle of the river-beds. Khapalu, on the other hand, which is situated at the point of junction of a considerable stream, occupies the surface of a thick bed of alluvium of great extent, sloping very steeply from the apex of the triangle in a recess among the mountains to its base, which is formed by the Shayuk. The fort of Khapalu is perched at a great height on a remarkable projecting scarped rock, just at the mouth of the ravine behind the village. The cultivation has a width of not less than two miles, and, as it abounds in fruit-trees, it must in summer, when the fields are green and the trees are in leaf, be a place (for Tibet) of considerable beauty. From the abruptness of the slope of the alluvial platform, the terrace-walls of the fields are very high, often as much as six feet. The fruit-trees are the same as those commonly cultivated in Nubra and Chorbat; the elm and Elæagnus of Nubra are also common, as well as the white poplar. At Khapalu there are also a few plane-trees, which do not extend further east.
The Lycium of Nubra, which had entirely disappeared in the narrow and rocky parts of the Shayuk, reappeared as soon as the valley spread out into a gravelly plain, being common at Abadan, and abundant at Surmu and Khapalu. A species of berberry, a genus wanting in the higher parts of the Shayuk (except in the mountains, where a small alpine species is occasionally seen), was found in Surmu. The species was apparently identical with the common berberry of Europe, which extends even into the drier valleys of the Himalaya. I also recognized a few other new plants—a small, almost herbaceous Sophora was one of these, and, still more remarkable, Peganum Harmala, a species which extends from the Mediterranean flora as far east as the Punjab, and which indicates a very considerable amount of summer heat.
The shrubby Hippophaë is still very plentiful, but, either from more careful cultivation, or because the nature of the slopes prevents the formation of swampy margins to the little irrigation streams, it does not spread to so great an extent over the cultivated tracts, which, therefore, in the winter season look considerably more bare than those around the villages of Nubra.
The height of the bed of the Shayuk at Khapalu may be roughly estimated at about 8000 feet, as the determination of the boiling-point of water at my tent, which was high up in the village, gave an elevation of 8300 feet. I arrived at Khapalu from Surmu on the 3rd of November, and remained there during the 4th. The weather, which for some days had been very unsettled and disagreeable, suddenly cleared up on the 2nd of November, and continued for nearly a week very fine, the days being uniformly bright and sunny, with a gentle wind blowing up the valley of the Shayuk. The temperature in the sun was extremely agreeable, though the shade maximum was never much higher than 50°. The nights were clear and cold, the thermometer falling at Khapalu more than 14° below the freezing-point.
A little below Khapalu I found a number of people washing the sand of the Indus for gold; but the produce seemed to be very trifling, and the work is only carried on during winter, when labour is of no value for other purposes. I purchased for a rupee (paying, I believe, a good deal more than the value) the produce in gold-dust of one man's labour for three weeks. I suppose, however, he only worked occasionally.
BRAGHAR.
November, 1847.
Below Khapalu the valley of the Shayuk again begins to contract, but the open plain may be considered to extend for some way below the village of Braghar, where a large tributary joins from the north, and to which place there is a great deal of cultivation, especially on the right bank. Immediately below Braghar, there is a remarkable saline grassy plain, very swampy, and traversed by numerous small streamlets, in which a Chara and a linear-leaved Potamogeton were abundant. Below this plain the mountain spurs close in upon the river, contracting its channel very much, and frequently preventing all passage along the bank. The narrow portion of the river extends within a few miles of Iskardo, or for at least thirty miles of river distance. Throughout this tract the valley is very similar to that between Nubra and Chorbat. Villages are numerous, occupying very elevated platforms, on which there is frequently luxuriant cultivation. In many of the narrowest and most rugged places there is no passage along the river, and the road crosses spurs of considerable elevation.
Between Kunes and Kuru the narrowness of the river is probably at its maximum, as the road lies altogether along a ridge, elevated perhaps a thousand feet, to which the ascents and descents are extremely abrupt. Many parts of this ridge are capped with alluvium, which occurs in many places along this part of the course of the Shayuk in very great quantity. The largest village on this part of the river is Kiris, situated just above the junction of the Shayuk and Indus, on a nearly level alluvial platform of large size. Round Kiris there is a very extensive deposit of lacustrine clay, very fine, and horizontally stratified. Good sections of this, sometimes at least fifty feet in thickness, are exposed east of Kiris, not far from the Shayuk. I did not observe any fossils; but in so cursory an inspection as I was able to make, it is very probable that I may have overlooked them.