THE VALE OF KASHMIR, 21
Between this date and May 15, Mr. Barrett remained in Leh, while I visited Lake Pangong. Then, starting north across the great plateau, we reached Sanju, on the border of the plain of Chinese Turkestan, June 22, and Khotan July 11.
The part of the Himalayas which we crossed trends northwest and southeast in three parallel ranges. The front or southwestern range rises from the warm, low plains of northern India to an altitude of 15,000 feet in many places. Beyond it, toward the northeast, the basin of Kashmir, at an elevation of from 5000 to 6000 feet above the sea, interposes a smooth plain between the front range and the higher middle range. Still farther in the same direction, the narrow valley of the Indus, which here flows to the northwest, lies at an elevation of from 8000 to 13,000 feet between the middle range and the still more remote and lofty main or Ladakh range on the southwestern border of the great plateau of Tibet and Karakorum.
In order to reach Kashmir, we crossed the front range by the only low pass, that of Abbotabad, 5000 feet above the sea, and came up the Jhelum River in the " ekkas," shown at page 19, two-wheeled native carts, drawn by one horse. We put our baggage in the lower story and sat in the upper, sometimes cross-legged behind the taciturn, dark-skinned Mohammedan drivers, and sometimes beside them. Often the men got out to walk with their horses, and to feed them with great sticky lumps of crude sugar with bits of cane still in it. We, too, walked much of the time, and acquired keen appetites for the remarkably delicious omelets and desserts which some of the native cooks managed to pre-
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