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

by Thomas Thomson

KOARDU.
February, 1848.

Unfortunately for my objects, the inhabitants of Gilgit had since the beginning of winter been in a state of open insurrection, and had besieged the garrison placed by Gulab Singh in one of the forts of the valley. Attempts had been made by the Thannadar of Iskardo to send a force to their relief, but the garrison of that place was too weak to enable him to detach more than a very small portion of it; and the forced levies of Balti men, collected in all the districts of the country, had evidently no desire to fight against the more active inhabitants of Gilgit and the robber tribes of the higher valleys of Hunza and Nagyr. Large parties of fifty and a hundred were continually arriving during the winter at Iskardo, and were as soon as possible despatched towards the disturbed country; but the greater number of them, I was told, managed to desert, and to return to their villages, or to hiding-places elsewhere, long before the detachment arrived at the end of its journey.

Crossing the Indus in the ferry-boat, a little below the rock of Iskardo, my road lay along the north bank of the river, through extensive tracts of cultivation. There was much less snow on the surface of the fields in the village of Koardu, the first through which I passed on the north bank, than in the town of Iskardo, owing to the more favourable exposure. The villagers were busy sprinkling a thin layer of earth over the snow to hasten its melting. This village, which is about five miles distant from Iskardo, is backed by very high masses of clay conglomerate and clay, forming very irregular, often precipitous banks, resting on the ancient rocks behind. From Iskardo these beds are very conspicuous, but in the village itself only a very small portion can be seen at a time.

KAMAR.
February, 1848.

West of Koardu, a ridge of mica-slate, containing abundance of garnets, advances close to the river, which here runs on the northern side of the valley. The road up the valley skirts the base of this projecting spur, and then passes over level platforms for about four miles. The level tracts were still covered with snow, but in rocky places, and on all slopes facing the south, the ground was quite bare. Four miles from Koardu I passed the very large village of Kamar, the fields rising in terraces one behind another on a steeply sloping platform, which skirts the plain for nearly two miles. Behind the village, the same system of conglomerate and clay-beds, as at Koardu, rises in steep banks.

About a mile beyond Kamar, which is the last village on the north side of the Iskardo plain, the valley of the Indus contracts very suddenly, the mountains closing in upon the river. The beds of lacustrine clay extend without any diminution to the end of the open valley, and are covered, when close to the mountains, by numerous boulders of all sizes, many of which are of great dimensions. The fine clay at the termination of the open plain appears to underlie a great mass of boulder conglomerate, which is continued into the narrow part of the river valley.

ENTRANCE OF RONDU.
February, 1848.

Where the river passes from the open plain into the narrow ravine, the inclination of its bed seems increased, and the rapidity of its motion becomes much greater. This result is quite in accordance with what has been observed in the Nubra and Khapalu plains. Indeed, narrow valleys are so generally steeply sloping, and wide valleys so generally nearly level, that it can scarcely be doubted that the inclination of the surface is in some way connected with the width or amount of excavation of the valley.

For a mile or two beyond the end of the Iskardo plain, the mountains are sufficiently far apart to allow of the interposition of a narrow platform of conglomerate, over which the road runs. Soon, however, even this disappears, and thenceforward, as far as I went, the Indus runs through a narrow ravine of very uniform character. The mountains on both sides of the river are extremely steep, and, so far as I could judge at so early a season, almost uniformly rocky and precipitous. At distant intervals a small platform of alluvium is interposed between the cliffs and the river, but much more frequently precipices directly overhang the stream, or steep bare rocks, only not absolutely precipitous, rise from its margin. It is but seldom that the stony bed of the river or the alluvial platforms overhanging it, afford a level road for a few hundred yards at a time. In general the path continually ascends and descends over each successive ridge; the elevation to which it is required to ascend to find a practicable passage, varying from a few hundred to several thousand feet above the bottom of the valley. In at least eight or ten places between Iskardo and Rondu, the path ascends or descends by means of ladders placed against the face of a perpendicular wall of rock, or crosses fissures in the cliffs by planks laid horizontally over them. This road is therefore quite impracticable for beasts of burden or horses, and is never used except in winter, when no other route is open to the traveller.

INDUS VALLEY.
February, 1848.