DETENTION AT BALTAL.
April, 1848.
My whole party took possession of the log-hut; but not liking the smoke which, in an instant, filled it, so that there was no seeing across its width, I had a space cleared for my tent. It rained smartly in the evening, but soon after dark it again began to snow, and long before morning I was awoke by the cracking of the ridge-pole of my tent, which had given way under the pressure of a foot and a half of snow. Had it fallen at once I should probably have been buried till morning, as I was too distant to make myself heard, and had to rise to summon assistance, to move my bed into the log-hut.
All day on the 14th it snowed unceasingly, and my people would not continue the journey; but on the 15th it was fair, and I gladly made a move, as the log-hut of Baltal was a most uncomfortable resting-place. The road lay along the Sind river, which ran to the south-west, through a deep but rather open valley, only partially wooded. The forest consists partly of pines, partly of deciduous-leaved trees. Of these I could recognize birch, poplar, and willow, which formed the mass of the woods, but there were no doubt many others. The pines were principally Pinus excelsa; silver fir and spruce also occurred, but I saw no deodar nor Gerard's pine. The trees grew in well defined masses of forest, separated by much open ground, in the level plain which skirted the river on the south side of the valley; on this side they also rose high on the mountains, but the slopes on the north side were bare.
SONAMARG.
April, 1848.
Seven or eight miles from Baltal, I found an uninhabited house, at a place called Sonamarg[17], where a bridge crosses the Sind river. Snow had been continuous all the way, diminishing in depth as we descended the river. A mile or two before reaching Sonamarg, the stream approaches close to the mountains on the north side of the valley, barely leaving a passage for the road, which for some distance skirted the base of steep cliffs. In one of the ravines which here furrowed the mountain slopes, I had an opportunity of seeing the descent of an avalanche. While crossing the ravine I was warned by the sound that a snow-slip was approaching, but had abundance of time to retreat to a place of safety before it came near. When the avalanche came into sight, the ravine, which was narrow and deep, was completely filled by balls of snow of various dimensions, which continued to flow past for several minutes. The snow-slip terminated in the river, which was speedily blocked up for two-thirds of its width with an immense accumulation of snow.
At Sonamarg the Sind river bends abruptly towards the south, and enters a rocky gorge, down which its stream advances with great rapidity, over a steeply inclined bed, very rocky and much interrupted by rapids. Leaving Sonamarg on the morning of the 16th of April, I crossed the river, and after a mile and a half of level ground bare of trees, still covered with snow, I entered a thin forest of pine and silver fir, which continued to the entrance of the gorge. The silver fir (Picea Webbiana) was a fine straight tree, with short horizontal or drooping branches, and its leaves were very variable in length.
When I had fairly entered the narrow gorge of the river, I found that it was in many places still blocked up with snow, which had descended in avalanches down the narrow ravines, and had accumulated in the bed of the stream. We crossed the river three times on snow-beds. From the rapidity of the descent, however, the climate changed rapidly. After four or five miles there was no snow, except in ravines, where it had accumulated in avalanches, and at last even these had almost entirely melted away. Still snow lay in patches on the right bank of the river, in the village of Gagangir, at which I halted for the day; and on the left bank, which faced the north, and was therefore in shade, snow still covered the whole surface down to the bank of the river.
GAGANGIR.
April, 1848.
At the village of Gagangir the Sind river resumes its south-westerly direction, and its valley becomes more open, and the descent of its bed less abrupt. The elevation of the village is about 7900 feet above the level of the sea, so that the descent from Sonamarg is probably not less than a thousand feet in a distance of nine miles—a very considerable fall. On the latter part of the day's journey, a very considerable change was observable in the aspect of the vegetation. Birch and willow continued common throughout, but were mixed latterly with many other trees and shrubs, all of which were beginning to show symptoms of vitality. The hazel (Corylus lacera) and a species of Viburnum were in full flower, both still devoid of leaves; a few herbaceous plants were also in flower in open places, the most abundant of which were a species of Colchicum, remarkable for its bright orange-coloured flowers, and a pretty little rose-purple Corydalis, very closely allied to, if not the same as, a species of eastern Europe. Still the general aspect of the country was very wintry, as there were few pines, and the forest was therefore quite bare of leaves, while the signs of progress, though evident on a near inspection, did not attract attention in the general view.
SIND VALLEY.
April, 1848.