Western Himalaya and Tibet Part 11

Advancing up the stream, we found that numerous hot springs rose on its banks, and sometimes under the water. The hottest of these had a temperature of 174. From these springs gas was copiously evolved, smelling strongly of sulphur; and in their immediate neighbourhood the water of the little river had a faintly sulphurous taste, though elsewhere it was quite pure and good. The stream, which was perhaps twenty feet wide, was usually rather deep. Dense ma.s.ses of aquatic weeds, chiefly species of _Zannich.e.l.lia_ and _Potamogeton_, grew in the water, and along the margins their dead stems, mixed with mud, formed immense banks, scarcely strong enough to bear the weight of a man, and yet seemingly quite solid. A small crustaceous animal was common among the weeds, but though I searched with care I could find no sh.e.l.ls. The stream was full of fish, which swarmed among the weeds, and darted backwards and forwards in the tepid water in immense shoals. They were generally about six inches in length, and appeared to my inexperienced eye to belong to two or three species, all different from those which had been seen at Hanle. In the hottest water of the hot springs I collected three species of _Conferva_.

[Sidenote: MYRICARIA TREES.

_September, 1847._]

The existence of the tree _Myricaria_ in the gorges between Pugha and the Indus, which had appeared to us at the time very remarkable, was fully explained by the occurrence of the hot springs, and the consequent high temperature of the water of the stream, and was peculiarly interesting as an ill.u.s.tration of the influence of temperature upon vegetation. It may fairly be considered, I think, as a proof, that arboreous vegetation does not cease at great elevations in consequence of the rarefaction of the air, but only on account of the diminution of temperature which usually accompanies increased elevation. The trees of _Myricaria_, it must be observed, came abruptly to an end with the ravine, none occurring on the open plain.

We cannot suppose that the trifling increased elevation caused their disappearance; it seems probable that the narrow walls of the gorge, by concentrating the heat, prevented its escape, and that, therefore, the temperature was more elevated than in the open plain, where the action of winds and free radiation combined to lower it. The occurrence of fish in the water of Pugha, at an elevation of nearly 15,500 feet above the level of the sea, is also very remarkable, and still more strikingly demonstrative of the same fact, inasmuch as it would certainly not have been very surprising that air at that elevation should, from its rarity, be insufficient for the support of life in animals breathing by gills.

At the gorge, where the narrow ravine expands into the lake plain of Pugha, the rock is clay-slate, but the hills which skirt the open plain are micaceous schist, varying much in appearance, often with large crystals of garnet, and crumbling rapidly to decay. On the surface of the plain lay many scattered boulders of a peculiar kind of granite, evidently transported from a considerable distance along the stream; and in all the central parts of the plain, a very remarkable conglomerate in horizontal strata, consisting of angular fragments of the surrounding rocks, cemented together by calcareous matter, was observed.

[Sidenote: BORAX PLAIN.

_September, 1847._]

The whole of the plain is covered, to the depth of several feet at least, with white salt, princ.i.p.ally borax, which is obtained in a tolerably pure state by digging, the superficial layer, which contains a little mixture of other saline matters, being rejected. There is at present little export of borax from Pugha, the demand for the salt in Upper India being very limited, and the export to Europe almost at an end.

[Sidenote: BORAX LAKES OF TIBET.

_September, 1847._]

It has long been known that borax is produced naturally in different parts of Tibet, and the salt imported thence into India was at one time the princ.i.p.al source of supply of the European market. I am not aware that any of the places in which the borax is met with had previously been visited by any European traveller, but the nature of the localities in which it occurs has been the subject of frequent inquiry, and several more or less detailed accounts have been made public. These differ considerably from one another, and no description that I have met with accords with that of the Pugha valley. Mr.

Saunders[13] describes (from hearsay) the borax lake north of Jigatzi as twenty miles in circ.u.mference, and says that the borax is dug from its margins, the deeper and more central parts producing common salt.

From the account of Mr. Blane[14], who describes, from the information of the natives, the borax district north of Lucknow, and, therefore, in the more western part of the course of the Sanpu, it would appear that the lake there contains boracic acid, and that the borax is artificially prepared by saturating the sesquicarbonate of soda, which is so universally produced on the surface of Tibet, with the acid. At least, the statement that the production of borax is dependent on the amount of soda, leads to this conclusion. The whole description, however, (as is, indeed, to be expected in a native account of a chemical process,) is very obscure, and not to be depended upon. Mr. Saunders does not notice any hot springs in the neighbourhood of the borax; but in the more western district described by Mr. Blane, hot springs seem to accompany the borax lake as at Pugha.

It is not impossible that the three districts in which the occurrence of borax has been noticed, which are only a very small portion of those which exist, may represent three stages of one and the same phenomenon. The boracic acid lake may, by the gradual influx of soda, be gradually converted into borax, which, from its great insolubility, will be deposited as it is formed. On the drainage or drying-up of such a lake, a borax plain, similar to that of Pugha, would be left behind[15].

From Pugha, two roads towards Le were open to us. We might either return to the Indus, and follow the valley of that river throughout, or proceed by a more direct route across the mountains to join the road from Lake Chumoreri to Le, by which Mr. Trebeck had travelled on his way to Piti. As we knew that the Indus route would be surveyed by Captain Strachey, who was desirous of following the course of the river as far as practicable, we preferred the more mountainous road, and, therefore, on leaving our encampment at Pugha, on the morning of the 23rd of September, we continued to ascend the valley of the little stream, on the banks of which we had been encamped. For the first two miles the plain was nearly level, and similar in character to what has just been described, hot springs being observed at intervals.

[Sidenote: SULPHUR MINE.

_September, 1847._]

Two miles from our encampment, we stopped and examined the spot whence sulphur is obtained, at the base of the mountain slope on the north side of the valley. Ascending a few feet over a loose talus of shingle, which skirted the bottom of the hill, we found two narrow caverns in the slaty rock, apparently natural, or only a little widened by art, roughly circular, and less than three feet in diameter at the mouth. One of these caverns continued a long way inwards, nearly horizontally, but it contracted considerably in diameter, and was so dark that we could not penetrate far. The rock was princ.i.p.ally gypsum, interstratified with very friable mica-slate. Sometimes the gypsum was amorphous and powdery, at other times in needles two or three inches long, perpendicular to the strata of slate. The sulphur was in small quant.i.ties, scattered among the gypsum, and was more abundant in the lower beds. It was frequently in very perfect crystals, not, however, of any great size.

The air which issued from these funnel-shaped apertures was very sensibly warm, and had a strongly sulphurous odour. Unfortunately, we had not antic.i.p.ated the necessity for observing the temperature, which was not by any means oppressive, and was only remarkable in contrast with the extreme cold of the external air.

In the neighbourhood of the sulphur-pits, the hot springs along the course of the stream were very numerous, evolving much gas. A little higher they ceased altogether, and the upper part of the plain was without any springs, as was evident from the quant.i.ty of ice by which it was covered. For more than a mile it was a dead level, and very swampy; but afterwards the valley became gently sloping and gravelly, the little stream being often hidden under the pebbles. Large boulders of the same granite which we had observed the day before, were scattered over the surface. The vegetation in this valley was extremely scanty, a few scattered tufts of _Dama_, and some shrubby _Artemisiae_, were occasionally seen, but the herbaceous vegetation had been almost entirely destroyed by the intense morning frosts, which had for some time been of daily occurrence. On the latter part of the day's journey the rock on the mountain-side changed from mica-slate to gneiss, of which very lofty scarped cliffs rose abruptly on the right hand. We encamped on a level spot, after ten miles of almost imperceptible ascent.

Next morning we continued to ascend the valley, which was now very rugged, from ma.s.ses of boulders, which were heaped one on another to a very great thickness. The stream had cut for itself a narrow channel, nearly a hundred feet in depth, the walls of which were entirely composed of huge incoherent ma.s.ses of rock, all more or less angular.

A walk of three miles brought us to the crest of the pa.s.s, which was nearly level and gra.s.sy for about a mile; its elevation was about 16,500 feet. The pa.s.s (Pulokanka La) is a very deep depression in the axis of the chain, which runs parallel to the left bank of the Indus, separating the waters tributary to that river from those which join the Zanskar river, some of the feeders of the latter springing from the valleys on the western slopes of these mountains. The hills right and left of the pa.s.s rise very boldly into rugged ma.s.ses, contrasting strongly with the level plain which const.i.tutes the pa.s.s, in which the watershed is scarcely perceptible.

[Sidenote: SALT LAKE.

_September, 1847._]

From the pa.s.s the descent was considerably more abrupt than the ascent had been. The valley to the right was bare and stony, watered by a small streamlet, which had, as on the eastern face of the pa.s.s, cut a deep channel for itself among boulders. On descending, we turned gradually to the right, and a lake by degrees came in view, towards the southern extremity of which the road advanced over undulating hills of fine clay, full of fresh-water sh.e.l.ls, almost entirely of one species of _Lymnaea_, of which the specimens were extremely numerous.

This lake is the Thogji Chumo of Mr. Trebeck, who travelled along it on his journey from Le to Piti.

[Sidenote: FOSSILIFEROUS CLAYS.

_September, 1847._]

I was much surprised, and not a little pleased, to find that the clay-beds contained fossils; as, except on one occasion in Piti, where I found one or two specimens of a small _Planorbis_, I had in vain sought in the clayey beds for any trace of organized beings. Here, however, sh.e.l.ls were in prodigious abundance, and as the species was a large one, they were very conspicuous. The clay formation was horizontally stratified, and quite impalpable. The uppermost beds were at least a hundred feet above the level of the lake; and as the valley by which we descended was in its lower part almost horizontal, the lacustrine beds extended to a considerable distance from the lake, forming a slightly undulating surface, over which the road ran.

After reaching the banks of the lake, the road kept its eastern sh.o.r.e throughout its whole length, which was about three miles, and we encamped close to its north end, on the edge of a level salt plain.

Our elevation was about 15,500 feet. The margins of the lake, which was intensely saline, were generally very shallow, and its banks often swampy, and covered with saline plants, especially _Chenopodiaceae_; a species of _Suaeda_, with cylindrical fleshy leaves, was especially abundant, growing in the soft mud close to the banks of the lake. A _Blysmus_, several gra.s.ses, and _Ranunculus Cymbalaria_ were also common along the banks of the lake. No sh.e.l.ls could be seen in the water. The surrounding hills were not very lofty, but often rose abruptly several hundred feet, and were in general rugged and rocky.

At the height of perhaps 150 feet above the lake, a weathered mark could be traced on the face of the mountains, wherever they were rocky, everywhere quite horizontal. This was most conspicuous from a distance, and became indistinct on a near approach. It appeared to indicate, as I shall hereafter show, the level of the surface of the lake at some former period.

On the morning of the 25th of September, our day's journey commenced by rounding the north end of the lake, keeping at some distance from its margin to avoid swamp. For about two miles from the northern end, the ground continued almost level, and contained great ma.s.ses of the lacustrine clay quite horizontally stratified, and very little higher than the surface of the water, but here quite without sh.e.l.ls. A wide valley, rising gently towards the north, lay beyond this level plain; but our road, pa.s.sing across the end of the lake, ascended another valley, which ran in a north-west direction from its north-west corner. The slope of this valley was very gentle. It was bounded by low undulating or rocky hills, on which, where the surface was suitable, the same remarkable water-mark could be traced continuously, and still, to all appearance, quite horizontal. The centre of the valley was occupied by clay, at first non-fossiliferous, but a little further on containing a great abundance of sh.e.l.ls, the same as in the bed seen the day before. A few specimens of a very small bivalve, seemingly a species of _Cyclas_, were also met with; but they were so very rare, that they bore an infinitesimally small proportion to the _Lymnaea_.

[Sidenote: ANCIENT WATER-MARK.

_September, 1847._]

[Sidenote: FORMER OUTLET OF LAKE.

_September, 1847._]

For several miles the ancient water-mark could be traced along the sides of the hills, appearing to descend gradually, as the valley slightly rose in elevation. Beds of clay continued to occupy the middle of the valley nearly as long as the water-mark remained visible. At last it disappeared where a depression on the left, leading to the valley of Rukchin, seemed to indicate the former drainage of the lake, at a time when its waters occupied a much higher level, and contained in a living state the large mollusca of which the sh.e.l.ly coverings still remain in such vast abundance in the clay. As it was at the very edge of the lacustrine clay formation that the sh.e.l.ls were so abundant, while the ma.s.ses of clay in the vicinity of our encampment of the 25th, at the north-east extremity of the lake, were without any, it would appear that the species was quite littoral, while in the more central parts fine mud was deposited, without sh.e.l.ls. The outlet was indicated to me by Major Cunningham, who in a previous journey had travelled along a part of the Rukchin valley in descending from the Lachalang pa.s.s towards the salt lake. As it may fairly be inferred that the lake was quite fresh at the time when it was inhabited by _Lymnaeae_ and _Cyclades_, it is satisfactory to know that so very small an increase of the height of the surface of the water, as about 150 feet, would be sufficient to admit of its discharging its waters along the course of an open valley into one of the tributaries of the Zanskar river.

Our road, after pa.s.sing the ravine on the left, along which I suppose the discharge of the lake at its original level to have been effected, turned still more towards the north, and ascending an open valley to the right, crossed a low _col_, or pa.s.s, and descended into a small basin surrounded by hills, which was evidently at some former period the bed of a small lake, for it was filled with pure fine clay, in which, however, I could not observe any sh.e.l.ls. From this plain we pa.s.sed into another open valley, up which we ascended in a northerly direction for five or six miles, encamping where the mountains on both sides began to close in a circle. Throughout the day we had been gradually but very gently ascending, and the height of our encampment was probably about 16,500 feet. We were about two miles from the Tunglung pa.s.s, a depression in the range parallel to the Indus, the same ridge which we had crossed before descending to the salt lake.

The axis of the range had been very near us on the right hand since we had crossed it on the 24th, and had sent down a succession of spurs, separated by wide valleys, along which we had been travelling. These separating ridges appeared usually to rise to an elevation of from one to two thousand feet above the nearly level valleys which lay at their bases, and were, though often rocky, less remarkably so than in many previous parts of our journey.

[Sidenote: ASCENT TOWARDS TUNGLUNG Pa.s.s.

_September, 1847._]

The elevated country surrounding the sources of the Parang and Hanle rivers, and those of the more eastern branches of the Zanskar, as well as that encircling Lake Chumoreri, const.i.tutes as near an approach to what Humboldt has denominated a knot (_noeud_) of mountains, as any part of the Himalaya which I have visited; not that I conceive there is any reason to suppose that we have in this part of the chain an intersection of two mountain ma.s.ses of different ages, to which cause the distinguished geographer is disposed to a.s.sign those aggregations of mountains which he has so designated. There is, however, as indicated by the origin of so many considerable streams in a confined area, an extensive tract of highly elevated land, in which the valleys have a very gentle slope, while the surrounding mountains are not much elevated above them. The whole tract is nevertheless eminently mountainous, if contrasted, not with the still more rugged districts by which it is on every side surrounded, but with the hilly districts of less alpine countries.

In the elevated district which we had been traversing since crossing the Parang pa.s.s, there is little or no cultivation, a field or two at Hanle and at the monastery on the banks of Lake Chumoreri (as I am informed by Major Cunningham) being the only exceptions. The district, however, is much frequented by a nomade population of shepherds, who, living in tents, move about with their flocks as the abundance of food or their own caprice may lead them. Cl.u.s.ters of black tents were now and then seen by us at intervals, especially in Rupchu, by which name the districts round the salt lake are known to the wandering inhabitants.

During the whole of the 25th of September, a furious north wind had continued to blow, accompanied by a cloudy sky, and all the indications of extremely unsettled weather, such as had been met with in the neighbourhood of Hanle only a week before. It was evident that, as winter approached, these periods of disturbance recurred more and more frequently. This time the fury of the blast increased as the day advanced, and after dark the cold in our tents was very severe. About 10 P.M. it began to snow slightly, and at daybreak on the 26th the ground was covered with snow to a depth of between two and three inches. As we had a prospect of arriving in milder regions by diminishing our elevation during the day, we hastened our departure as much as possible. A mile and a half of level ground brought us directly under the pa.s.s, the ascent to which was at last very steep.

The road was very stony and rugged, but everything being covered with snow a good deal deeper than on the open plain on which we had encamped, we did not linger at the summit. The wind still blew strongly from the north, driving in our faces the still falling snow, and opposing our progress towards the crest, which was very rocky, being composed of a ma.s.s of hard stratified quartz. The elevation of the summit was about 17,500 feet.

[Sidenote: TUNGLUNG Pa.s.s.

_September, 1847._]

The descent from the pa.s.s was very rapid. After a few paces, we were in a narrow and steep ravine, in which we continued to descend very abruptly, without obtaining any view of the surrounding country. Three miles from the summit, at perhaps 2000 feet lower level, snow ceased to lie on the ground, but it continued to fall lightly till the afternoon. Large rounded tufts of an Alsinaceous plant were common on the upper part of the descent, conspicuous under the snow. Lower down, the remains of species of _Corydalis_ and _Saussurea_ were discoverable in crevices of the rocks, the only remains of the alpine vegetation. The rock on both sides was clay-slate.

Continuing to descend rapidly, the ravine widened a little, and became filled with a most extensive development of alluvial conglomerate, forming thick ma.s.ses, worn into pinnacles and fantastic shapes, like the similar deposits above Sungnam in Kunawar. This was particularly conspicuous where a lateral valley joined that along which we descended, a flat-topped promontory of alluvium there projecting far beyond the primitive rocks.

[Sidenote: GIAH.

_September, 1847._]

After a descent of about 4000 feet of perpendicular height, we arrived at Giah, elevated 13,400 feet above the sea, not a little glad to be among houses, in a more temperate region than it had been for some time our lot to travel in. We took up our quarters in the upper room of a two-storied house, which had been prepared for our reception, and willingly agreed to halt a day in order to give time for arrangements, for a change of porters, and a rest to our servants and guides. Giah will be recollected, by those acquainted with Moorcroft's travels, as the place where he entered the Tibetan country, and where he was for some time kept in considerable uncertainty as to the nature of the reception he would meet with. Since that time the supremacy of the Sikhs has entirely changed the state of the country; and though the king (Gylpo) of Giah still exists, he does not even exercise a nominal sovereignty, but lives a pensioner on the Sikh government, without power and with a very limited income.

The influence of the Sikhs has, however, produced little change in the character of the people, as their occupation of the country, except in Le itself, and at one or two military posts, is entirely nominal, and only maintained by the moral influence of their known superiority in resources and military skill. The gumpa, or monastery, as in Moorcroft's time, crowns a rocky hill on the right bank of the Giah stream, while the town, or more properly village, on the left bank, is built on the steep alluvial banks high above the stream. There was a considerable extent of cultivation round the village, barley and peas being the chief crops; both had been cut, but were still lying in small heaps in the fields. Notwithstanding the great elevation, a number of poplar-trees, of the large cordate-leaved species (which seems identical with _P. balsamifera_), occur in the village, several of which attain a considerable size.

[Sidenote: GIAH RAVINE.

_September, 1847._]

On the morning of the 28th of September we resumed our journey towards Le. By crossing the Tunglung pa.s.s, we had again gained the eastern slope of the ridge dividing the waters of the Zanskar from those of the Indus. The Giah stream flows towards the latter river with a north-easterly course, and two marches of little more than seven miles each, brought us to the banks of the Indus at a village called Upshi. For the first mile after leaving Giah, the valley was somewhat open, with steep banks of alluvial conglomerate; it then contracted rather suddenly into a narrow ravine, with steep rocky walls, composed of highly inclined strata of conglomerate and sandstone. Owing to the diminished elevation, the vegetation was considerably more recognizable than it had been for the last week, and several shrubby plants were seen which had long been absent. _Ephedra_ was common in the crevices of the rocks, and the Tibetan rose and a small shrubby _Lonicera_ grew on the gravelly banks of the little stream.

[Sidenote: REMARKABLE GORGE.

_September, 1847._]

At Miru, a considerable village where we encamped, the valley expanded into a little plain, filled as usual with alluvium, and covered with cultivation. A few poplar-trees occurred in the village. The ravine contracted immediately below this place, and was, if possible, more narrow and rocky than the day before, as the little stream had to be crossed not less than four or five times in as many miles, on small wooden bridges of rough planks. A very beautiful l.a.b.i.ate shrub, a species of _Perowskia_, with bright blue flowers, which I afterwards found very abundant in the Indus valley from 12,000 to 8000 feet, was here met with for the first time. Close to its junction with the Indus, the ravine expanded into an open plain, well covered with houses and enclosures, with scattered poplar and willow trees, as well as a few apricots, and traversed by ca.n.a.ls of irrigation conducted from the little Giah rivulet. The Indus is here not more than forty feet wide, flowing swiftly over large boulders, and quite unfordable.