212 HEADWATERS OF YURUNG-KASH [CHAP. XIII.
rose with an easy gradient towards the south. Then I turned off the track and climbed a high ridge eastwards that from a distance promised a good surveying station.
Its height, 13,950 feet above the sea, commanded a panorama more impressive than any I had enjoyed since I stood on the , slope of Murtagh-Ata. To the east there rose the great Kuen-luen Peak with its fantastic ridges separated by glittering glaciers and its foot rising from a belt of strangely eroded bare ridges, as shown by the photograph at the head of this chapter. By its side the gorge of the main branch of the Yurung-kash could clearly be made out as it cuts through the series of stupendous spurs that trend northwards from the main snowy range of the Kuen-luen. From the latter the great peak was thus entirely separated—an interesting observation fully in accord with the orography of the Karakorum and Hindukush. There it has long ago been remarked that the points of greatest elevation are not to be found on the actual watershed, but on secondary spurs detached from it.
The deep-cut valleys and serrated ridges descending from the main range presented a most striking contrast to the flat, worn-down features of the plateaus behind us. To the west the course of the Yurung-kash was lost in a jumble of rocky walls that gradually sank away towards the plain. In the north there showed itself as one unbroken mass the gaunt conglomerate range which we had crossed on the way to Buya, culminating in a broad, snow-covered peak, the Tikelik-tagh, some distance to the east of the Ulugh-Dawan. Nature could not have created a better survey-station than the ridge on which I stood. With the enjoyment of the grand panoramic view there mingled the satisfaction of seeing so large and interesting a tract hitherto unsurveyed suddenly spread out before me as if it were a map. While Ram Singh worked away at his plane-table I was busily engaged in taking a complete circle of views with the photo-theodolite. Notwithstanding the perfectly blue sky it was bitterly cold on
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