350 WESTWARDS TO LADAK.
almost at right angles with its previous direction and without any stimulus from the right, and in that way takes the shortest cut through the granite. It is, in a word, a magnificent transverse glen, short, narrow, wild, and picturesque. At the actual elbow, where the valley changes its direction, we observed, at a good i oo m. above its bottom, some especially well defined terraces, interrupted at only a couple of places by fissures and gravelly screes. During the period in which this valley served as the outlet conduit of the Panggong-tso, and when the volume of water that streamed down it was immense in comparison with that which it now carries, the valley was excavated with great energy, the effect being such as nobody would for one moment attribute to the existing little brook, even making allowance for its summer high-water. It is clearly from the same period also that the side-terraces date; and it is noteworthy that they have been built up with especial distinctness at the elbow on the right side of the valley, where the full force of the current spends itself. There too the rocky walls are precipitous, whereas on the opposite or left side they slope gently down to the bottom of the valley. From that point the terraces continue all the way down to Drugub, growing bigger and more distinctly defined as they proceed, so much so indeed that they not seldom constitute the peculiar and salient feature of the landscape.
On the right side of the valley is a curious sort of place known as Samkang. In a hollow a little bit above the bottom of the valley there are three small square stone houses adorned with flags and streamers; there three lamas are said to live, leading the life of semi-recluses. Their dwellings look like swallows' nests plastered against the rocky wall high up above the valley. A little way past Samkang the valley widens out. We thus left the striking, accentuated breach behind us. The slope grew more gentle; the stream was frozen, and having spread out in ice-sheets, made the valley look bigger than it really is. As an actual fact the volume did not amount to very much more than i cub.m. in the second, and of this a large proportion came from a copious spring on the right side of the valley just above the sharp elbow. We then travelled north-west again, and soon came out upon the level plain of Tanksi, with houses of stone and clay, small clumps of willows, and cultivated fields surrounded by stone walls. On the left we passed the outlet of a large glen, through which a path is said to lead to Rudok. In the expansive outlet of our valley several bosses of schist stand out separately and detached. One of them is crowned by the monastery of Dschova, occupying a picturesque and commanding position on the summit of the naked pinnacled crags. On a couple of other isolated crags in the vicinity stand a red four-square building and a similar tower respectively.
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