DESCENDING FROM TIIE HIGH PLATEAU. 261
as the sky remained clear, we felt it at times almost warm, at all events in comparison with the bitter cold which we had experienced on the high plateau. Moreover the day brought with it a welcome change of scene — a picturesque country, favourably sloping ground, and a cheery, prattling stream. Our direction was west-south-west, and the distance we covered was nearly zo kilometers.
We kept to the left bank of the river. The southern range was now fairly
imposing, and distinguished by wild and picturesque crags. At the outlets of the short, steep transverse glens were gravelly screes of the usual character, one or two of which we crossed over. They are seamed by a number of watercourses, often rather deeply incised. These screes consist of moderately coarse gravel, all the finer material having been washed away out of it. One of them forms a regular rounded
bluff, and forces the river to make a bend to the north. From the top of it we descended pretty steeply to the outlet of a fresh transverse glen, which is in so far different from its neighbours that it forms a hollow between deeply undermined erosion terraces. Below this point came, in a little expansion, an almost level flat, covered with grass which had not been touched. In the middle of it was a pool, surrounded by a marsh, and the ground was rough, there being a number of small mounds with scrub growing on them. This ground is overflowed by the river in the wet season; and the pools which I have mentioned, then hard frozen, were the last surviving relics of such an inundation. Here again the gentleness of the fall is witnessed to by the sharp bends that the river makes. On the north side of the valley, between the river and the main range, rises a small mountain butte. Just below the marsh two larger transverse glens emerge, uniting just as they issue from the mountains.
The valley continued to contract; in fact below the marsh it might fairly be described as narrow. At the same time the slope grew steeper. The river, which had hitherto been divided into several arms, now gathered itself into one channel, and its windings became very insignificant; for long distances the course was almost perfectly straight, the water rippled along in a lively fashion, and the fringes of ice continued to grow narrower. Occasionally, where the fall again became gentler, the river was for some distance entirely covered with ice. Fish abounded in it everywhere, and wild-cluck occurred every now and again. The transverse glens in the southern mountains became increasingly wilder and more inaccessible. Their outlet frequently resembles a dark gateway flanked by vertical walls of rock. It was only through these occasional breaches that we obtained glimpses of the main chain, slightly sprinkled with snow. Its peaks are jagged and capricious in outline. In its narrowest parts the bottom of the valley was entirely filled• with sheets of ice, pure and bright, and sparkling like silver in the sunshine. The river was at this part divided into several open branches, boiling amongst the ice-sheets. On a patch of free soil between two of these branches some bushes were growing.
Shortly after this our valley was joined by an exceptionally big side-glen coming from the south-west and offering a free view of the main range in that direction. It terminates in an especially big gravelly scree, furrowed by several large rainwater channels. In its lower part it is joined by smaller glens, with bushes growing in their sheltered outlets. From that point the principal valley runs towards the west-north-west, and kept it that direction all the way to our next camp.
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