Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/232

28 slsted of a mass of stones and thick mud, about 30 yards in breadth, and about 15 feet deep. The servants by the side of the little rill near the tents had just time to escape before it came down upon their fires. It was a most wonderful sight: a great moving mass of stones and rock, some of great size, measuring 10 feet by 6, all travelling along together like peas shot out of a hag, rumbling and tumbling one over the other, and causing the ground to shake. The large rocks lying in or near the edge of this moving mass would receive a few buffets, totter a little, and finally roll in amongst the rest to carry others away in turn. No one, who has not seen a flood of this kind, can form any idea of the mighty power of transport which the accumulated masses of water and melting snow acquire at these times, and I was almost bewildered by the spectacle.

Our first alarm happened about six. Shortly after another body of stones came down, not so large as the first, but travelling much faster, as it took the bed of the first and so met with fewer impediments. These “shwās” are of frequent occurrence in the ravines, particularly when the sides are of crumbling rock; they originate in land-slips, which stop the streams for a time, and often assume such a size as to cause great injury to the cultivated tracts and villages below.

I started at daylight on the 30th, and after crossing the path of the rock-stream of the previous evening, commenced the ascent of the spur from the Skoro La, which, though grassy, was very steep. At 11, after having come up 4090 feet from our morning station, we gained the Pass, 16,644 feet. Beyond was a wild and desolate scene of huge jagged rocks rising out of the snow, from which a glacier stretched away to the north. This glacier, though not of the largest size, is a very perfect specimen, running up to an elevation of 19,000 to 20,000 feet towards the high peak Trans-Indus 13, or Mungo Gŭsor. Its length from the Pass toits termination is rather more than 6 miles. Very little of the Braldoh valley was visible, but some of the high peaks beyond.

Opposite the village of Askolè the Braldoh is crossed by a rope-bridge, 270 feet in length. This fine tributary to the Indus is here a roaring boiling torrent, of an ochre colour, showing that its glacier sources are not far distant. The bridge is composed of nine ropes as a footway, with nine sets on either hand to hold by: the ropes are made of birch twigs. The passage across was by no means pleasant.

The country on this side was even more bare and rugged than that about Skardo: all the high points around were snow-clad, and glaciers of the second order filled the upper portions of all the ravines. Askolè is the furthest village on the right bank of the Braldoh, and contains about twenty dwellings. A few willows are