By this the volume of the stream had manifestly decreased. Not only were we approaching higher and barer regions, we had also passed a great many contributories on the way up. Ice-sheets were now more frequently observed in the bed of the river; they were rather large, but all of them soft, white, and brashy. On the other hand, there was no snow in the glen, and even on the mountains it appeared to be less in quantity. We only forded the river once; this receives a considerable increment from a large unnamed glen which debouches from the west. Animal life was still practically absent, save that we saw a few ravens only. But after we got past Jatuk we observed a flock of arkharis grazing on the grassy summit of a gravel-and-shingle terrace, but at our approach they hurriedly fled away up the mountains. At Jatuk the altitude was 4212 m. The prevailing rock still continued to be granite; though amongst the detritus at the bottom of the glen I picked up fragments of diabase, porphyry, crystalline schists, and other varieties of rock.
There we dismissed our caravan of hired yaks, for the weary animals only kept us back, and their loads were transferred to the backs of the horses.
April r 8th. The ascent became rather more noticeable, though without being at all pronounced or in any way troublesome to our horse caravan. Of the river we did not see much, except every now and again a sheet of soft ice. Nor did we cross the stream until we had almost reached our camping-ground for the night. The volume was then only i I,'2 cub.m., and that consisted chiefly of water which had melted during the day, and had only got down to that point by evening. Yet it was only occasionally that we caught a fugitive glimpse of the river, which for some distance was hidden underneath the detritus that filled the bottom of the glen; it «'as only in the deeper parts of the channel that it came to light. The
IIIF Color HighRes
