lay in thin patches. The adjacent mountains were for the most part whitened over. The English map calls the station Snemo, though to an adjacent ridge it gives the
name of Nimo.
The goal of the second day's journey was Nurla, called on the English map Snurla. After riding beside the Indus for an hour or so, we lost sight of it after it made a bend to the south, and rode up to the village of Besgo, situated in the outlet of a side-glen on the right. This glen, which is not very big, starts from the top of the main range that separates the Indus from the Schejok, but it is more thickly inhabited than any other glen in that region, the villages lying quite close together. For a short distance the mountainous country on our right was fashioned into the most fantastic shapes. The rock was red sandstone and conglomerate, and that relatively soft material has been weathered into an endless number of columns and sharp-pointed pyramids, standing as close together as the trees in a forest. Sometimes a small block of stone crowns the top of one of the pyramids, though they have for the most part fallen down. It is however plain, that it is to these protective cappings that the columns owe their origin. In consequence of these conformations the road looked in places dangerous, the stones appearing ready to fall at any moment.
After crossing a little bridge, that spans a brook issuing out of a minor side-glen, the road ascends rather steeply by zigzags, but then keeps for a good distance at the same horizontal level, possibly along the top of an old escarpment or riparian terrace. Here again we crossed over a minor offshoot of the main range. On the right a track branches off for Nurla by way of the village of Liker and for other places in the transverse glens. Then we crossed over yet another little pass, the rock at which was schist. After that we went down again by a zigzag path until we reached the outlet of a larger glen with a brook and a permanent bridge. Thus there exist a whole succession of side-glens opening on the right of the road, though from the left there are practically none. In an expansion of the Indus valley, not particularly wide, stands the village of Saspul; its fields are arranged in the usual terraced fashion, built up as it were on platforms (fig. 286). Apple, apricot, and other fruittrees abound, but the predominating tree is the poplar. The village occupies a splendid position on the slope, fully exposed to the midday sun. On the opposite or left side of the Indus steep cliffs overhang the river, and flat, level expanses occur but seldom. Just below Saspul we got close down to the Indus. There the river was crossed by a bridge, consisting of tree trunks cleverly thrown across from two small rocky headlands projecting into the stream, or rather they are the two halves of a threshold or sill, through which the river has sawn a passage. Nevertheless it appeared to me, that a certain amount of courage would be required to entrust oneself to such a fragile structure. The place is known as Altschi-samba.
On the mountain-slopes on the left side of the river we observed three terraces of an altogether remarkable size, the highest being, I dare say, 400 or 500 m. above the bottom of the valley. Along that side of the river there is also a path, which however appears to be used for local traffic only. The chief highway runs along the right side of the Indus, forming as it were a shelf or cornice on the flank of the mountains, generally at about 40 to 5o m. above the level of the stream.
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