Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 301 (Color Image)

0301	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1

CHAPTER XV

TO THE NISSA GLACIERS

THE only route available for approach to the westernmost

head-waters of the Yurung-kash was the one I had first

followed on my expedition of 1900, but in the inverse

direction. So no detailed account need be given here of

the four long marches which took us from Langhru across

a succession of high transverse spurs and through barren

gorges to Nissa. Nothing had changed in the desolate

look of these curiously eroded rugged ranges and the

mighty strata of detritus and loess dust which cover their

higher slopes. But the narrow strips of vegetation at the

bottom of those gorges which push their heads close

enough to the snow-line to receive running water during

the summer months, looked greener now than I could have

expected from the impressions left by my autumn passage

six years before (Fig. 56). On the top of the first pass, the Ulughat, close on Io,000 feet above the sea, where an

exceptional chance of clear weather had then given a day

so profitable for our triangulation, I found the little mound of

loose earth and scrub we had heaped up as a ` station mark'

perfectly intact, a fresh proof how favourable the conditions

of this dry region are to the preservation of even the most

insignificant structures. The fame of the ` Pao-t'ai ' we

had built on the mountain-top had spread far and wide

among the scattered little settlements of Taghliks ; for

Ram Singh had heard it talked of even in the forlorn

valley of Pusha.

But if nothing had changed in the weirdly arid look of

these mountains, it was different with the atmospheric

conditions. Instead of the brilliantly clear sky which in

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