Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/253

Rh dually sloping ice-bed with scarcely a single crevasse, steep cliffs enclosing it on either side. Several of the men felt the height, and had to remain behind from sickness and headache. I scarcely felt it; and I think that the state of the stomach has a great deal to do with these sensations.

The view from this point was superb down upon the enormous glacier below; whilst beyond were the fine snow-peaks of Trans-Indus 2 and 4, sending off large tributary glaciers 10 to 12 miles long. To the east, the view lay along the glacier, which was visible for 18 miles. On the north was one great elevated ice-plain, and the peaks bounding the Nobŭndi Sobŭndi glacier. The breadth of the main glacier was more than 2 miles, covered with broad moraines of black, white, red, and grey rocks, according to the tributary ice-streams it takes up in its course. No glacier scene in the whole of the Himalayas can exceed this in the magnitude of all its features. To the westward, the view was shut out by the spurs from the mountain, but the natives with me said that the glacier terminated two days’ journey distant, at Hisper, in Nagayr. The descent from the pass to the level ice below is about 3000 feet, and difficult as well as dangerous, being down steep slopes of ice and rock; so that it is necessary to let a man down, with a rope round his waist, to cut places for the feet. After finishing my work we retraced our steps, and at nightfall on the same day got back to the encampment, having successfully surveyed the northern watershed of the Basha Braldoh.

On the 5th of August I started early, and reached Arundu by noon. The next day, at 12 o’clock, I crossed the glacier, as before, to the left bank, and, ascending on that side by the skirts of the Chogo Loombah glacier, reached in the evening the edge of a small glacier lake, about a quarter of a mile square, called Būkpon Tso. These lakes were numerous, and formed a long linear series. They have a desolate look, from the many buried trees (willow and juniper) standing out of the water, mostly dead, the remainder struggling for life in the icy water. Some lakes were covered with masses of ice which had broken away from the glacier cliff. The waters were tenanted by flocks of ducks, but they kept out of gunshot.

We began the 8th by a long ascent up a spur, starting early, but all to no purpose; other spurs beyond shut out the view. So we descended again, and proceeded up the side of the glacier, sometimes walking on the ice, and sometimes on the hill-side. The surface of the ice was more uneven and broken than I had yet seen in these large glaciers, being, in fact, a sea of frozen waves as far as the eye could reach. The small lakes still continued wherever a lateral stream joined the glacier, thus making a barrier to its waters. The appearance of the glacier continued the same the