The station-house stands close beside the river in a position which for picturesque beauty is quite unique.
From Nurla to Kalatschi the character of the scenery does not alter; the valley still continues to be narrow, and the road keeps to the steep slopes on the right. The deep shade which prevailed in the early morning to a great extent blurred the outlines of the relief. But after the sun had risen and lit up a portion of the right side of the valley, the wild and gigantic surface-forms stood out with great boldness and emphasis ; but down in the bottom it was as cold and clammy as in a cellar. The patches of drift-ice on the river had increased in size. Now they swept in long connected files along the front of the ice anchored to the banks; now they crumbled to pieces upon getting caught in currents of varying velocities; and sometimes they stood still, piled themselves up one upon the other, and swung round in the eddies.
The village of Kalatschi occupies a picturesque and attractive position, and its grey stone walls, rising amphitheatre-wise one behind the other, make an apt background for the poplars and fruit-trees. Upon leaving the village the road goes down to the Indus, past the steadings and balconies and roofs of a white-walled watch-house. At the spot where the bridge spans it, the river is very narrow, being compressed between two rocky thresholds one on each side. The bridge rests upon stone supports at each end and is built of long logs of wood, with planks laid across them. It measures 36 paces or 25 m. in length. A second, but smaller, bridge crosses over a side-arm a few meters from the Indus. Not only was the bottom of the latter just then dry, but it was actually a good 8 m. above the level of the principal river. Probably a portion of the stream will flow along that arm in the flood season. The great difference in elevation bears however eloquent testimony to the enormous erosive energy that is developed in the principal bed, where the river has eaten its way down with such force that the side-branch has been unable to keep pace with it.
After that the road follows the left bank of the river, though at some distance from it; but very soon we turned our backs altogether upon the valley of the Indus and entered a side-glen. In this we encountered a succession of views of the wildest and most magnificent character. The glen itself is sawn down to an unparalleled depth between perpendicular walls of naked rock, for the most part black schists. The bed of the watercourse at the bottom of the glen is about 15 m. deep and has vertical escarpments, these too for the most part bare rock, namely black schist. The road kept to the right side of the glen until we reached the elastic and swinging bridge of Hlangtschu. On the English map the place is called Hangroo; but I am not able to say which is the correct spelling, this way or the way I have spelled it. I have always made it a rule to write names phonetically; but the English topographers no doubt had natives with them who were well acquainted with the locality and with its nomenclature. Like the English map, I am unable to give the name of the glen itself. In the lower part of the glen the road runs across steep gravelly screes, but above the bridge the glen grows narrower and wilder, being sometimes not more than ten or a dozen meters wide. In some places the rocky walls overhang, and you ride under a roof and projecting eaves, and have to
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