Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/252

48 imagined. A few willows were beginning to shoot up again, whilst the bottom of the old lake was grown over with a high jungle of rank grass. The size of this lake was about 2 miles long, by half a mile broad. From the line of the destroyed trees it was 200 feet deep. This line was well marked by the birch-trees growing along the hill-side, which were on a level with the moraine of the Niaro glacier. The lake continued as such for rather more than a year and a half, and, fortunately for those below, it subsided gradually, having taken about a month to discharge itself. Here I pitched our camp, and on the next morning (the 4th) we proceeded to the foot of the Kèro Loombah, the walking being generally over plateaux of high grass, birch growing in plenty on the mountain-sides. Traces of bears were frequent, but we did not come upon the animals. As we skirted the glacier, evident signs that it was now on the increase were constantly to be seen in the masses of upturned and broken turf.

About 1 mile further up, a lateral glacier descended from amongst the mountains to the west, and the spur bounding it to the north being practicable, I determined to fix the position. I ascended till the snowy peaks Trans-Indus 2 and Trans-Indus 4 could be seen above the bounding range of the Kèro glacier on the north, while Trans-Indus 11 to the south-east gave me my position very correctly.

The Kèro Ganse here divides into two, that to the leading up to the pass; that to the, of equal length, descends from the mountains, which also bound the Hoh Loombah of the Braldoh valley, but which are quite impassable. Other smaller ice-streams from the peaks of the intervening ridge give each its quantum to this branch.

I descended, and accomplished 2 miles more up the main glacier that day, encamping at a spot known as Kŭtchè Brausa, on the edge of a little green tarn of water. Next morning we crossed the glacier for 4 miles, diagonally, to the left bank, and left it at a place known as Ding Brausa. Ascending some 300 feet above it we crossed over a spur, and then took to the ice again, where a lateral glacier from the north descends into the main valley. The ice here is much fissured, and at some seasons very dangerous. It continued bad to Stiakboo Brausa (“Brausa” means “place ”), where, on a small spot of bare ground, two small conical huts, or rather kennels (for they are only 3 feet high), have been built for travellers who may be caught in snow-storms on their way over the pass. The narrow strip of moraine here disappears. From this we ascended in order to avoid the deep fissures below, and cut steps, for a distance of 200 yards, along the steep slope of the snow-bed, which runs down into the glacier. Beyond this, on turning due north, the pass of the Nūshik came in sight, up a gra-