Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/251

Rh It was necessary to fix some point well at the angle where the Basha River valley, turning from due north and south, takes a course west to Arundu, and so shuts out all the trigonometrical points in the Shigar River. I left Doko very early, and, after climbing a succession of grassy spurs, reached, at 3, the edge of a glacier of the second order, some 1500 feet above which a rocky slope extended, ending in a jagged ridge of bare rock. We crossed the glacier, and commenced the ascent, reaching the summit in about an hour. Much as I had been accustomed to the grand features of these regions, I do not remember that I ever experienced a feeling of astonishment so great as when I saw the view which here presented itself. For my survey work no point could be better; higher it was scarcely possible to proceed along the ridge to the south-west. Of the scene itself I can only venture to indicate the component elements. To the north-west there was the great glacier of the Basha, with the little village of Arundu at its termination, its fields touching the ice. On the west there was Peak B 14, or Haramosh, with its fine summit of eternal snow towering above all the minor cones, and from which the lateral feeders in that direction were evidently derived. But the Nūshik La and its glaciers were not visible, being shut out by the great intervening mass of ridges, and spurs, and glaciers.

Next day, after having been benighted on the mountain slopes, where we passed a supperless and a sleepless night, we started again for Arundu. I was much struck with this place, there is so much that is novel and curious, even to a mountain traveller. Not the least of these is to see agriculture going on close up to a glacier of so large a size. The remainder of our day here was employed in preparations for our trip to the Nūshik La, or Pass, from this valley into Nagayr.

On the 3rd of September the weather was again beautifully fine, and I started at 10 We had to proceed up the right bank of the glacier for about half a mile in order to cross it, and so enter the valley of the Kèro Loombah, which here joins the Basha from the north. This crossed, the track lay up the right flank of the Kèro Loombah, and for 4 miles, as far as the glacier of Niaro, was wretchedly bad. From the opposite moraine, after crossing the glacier, a curious scene presented itself. As the glacier abuts against the cliffs of the left bank of the Kèro Loombah River, it had, when much larger than it now is, so completely stopped the waters of this river as to form a large lake. This happened some ten years since. Before the formation of the lake, a wood of birch-trees, some of large size, covered the valley, and these, when it became filled with water, had all been killed; and there they now stood, with all their gaunt white stems, which, taken with the other features around, made up as desolate a scene as can he well