National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

and enforced a hurried farewell to Captain Stirling, who had insisted on sharing our toils as far
as this.

Fortunately the descent to the east proved less trying ; for the huge névé-beds at the head
of the glacier below afforded an easy slope, and when after some three miles' progress in soft snow
the glacier proper was reached, we found most of its crevasses sufficiently covered with fresh snow.
Farther down we could follow the line of the main lateral moraine on the north, and after a descent
of five hours a dry spot was found under its shelter where it was possible to bivouac in safety.
The bitter cold of that night at an elevation of over 15,000 feet made me anxious about some of
our Wakhī porters whose loads had caused them to lag behind ; but they too turned up safely
in the morning, having wisely kept moving all through the night. It was a source of great satisfac-
tion to me that my feet, in spite of loss of toes and impaired circulation, results of the frost-bite
accident at the close of my second journey, were still equal to a thirteen hours' struggle over snow
and ice at great elevations.

The snout of the glacier (Fig. 61) was not passed until after another four miles' steep descent
in the morning. On arrival in the valley below at the high grazing ground of Buattar I was glad
to find fresh transport from Hunza awaiting us. Once again the arrangements made weeks ahead
through Hūmāyūn Bēg, the Wazīr of Hunza, my old acquaintance of 1900, had not failed to assure
rapid progress. After two miles' easy descent from Buattar, the path struck the side of the mighty
ice-stream of Khūz, which comes down from the high range on the south and completely fills the
bottom of the main valley as it trends eastwards. Passing the narrow side valley to the north-west,
up which lies the route to the Irshad pass previously mentioned, we skirted the Khūz glacier
for a distance of more than four miles before its snout was reached in the now widening valley
bottom (Fig. 60) at an elevation of about 12,000 feet. Only a little beyond, on the alluvial fan
of Yarz-yarz, the first signs of former occupation were met with in the shape of abandoned fields
and decayed huts. They were to prove a characteristic feature of the Chapursan valley at many
points farther down. Some four miles beyond we halted at Bāba-ghundī, marked by a much-
frequented Ziārat, said to be the most famous throughout Hunza (Fig. 58). Here, too, at an
elevation of 11,600 feet, there is no permanent occupation ; but there are some oat-fields, which,
we were told, had been brought under cultivation again during the lifetime of the father of the
present Mīr of Hunza.

A long but easy march on September 4 down to Spandrinj allowed me to see the greater
portion of the Chapursan valley and realize its peculiar character. In spite of the great height
of the ranges to the north and south, rising to peaks of over 22,000 feet and as yet but very
imperfectly explored, the bottom of this valley is more open and unobstructed than any other
part of Hunza. Its gentle slope is sufficiently indicated by the fact that Spandrinj lies at an elevation
of only 1,600 feet or so less than Bāba-ghundī, though at a distance of about twenty-five miles
from it by road. The Chapursan valley, notwithstanding the great moraines that glaciers on the
south had once pushed down into it, contains a larger area of fairly level and easily irrigated
ground than probably all the rest of Hunza put together. It was therefore of distinct geographical
interest to note the extensive areas of abandoned cultivation that we passed between Bāba-ghundī
and Spandrinj. Neither want of water for irrigation nor present climatic conditions seem to furnish
any adequate explanation for their abandonment. It is true that below the outflow of the big
Ishkuk glacier there is ground where cultivation has, according to local tradition, been destroyed
by glacier detritus brought down through a change in the flood beds. But this factor is absent
elsewhere, and does not account by itself for the virtual abandonment of a valley that, with occupation
such as is found on corresponding ground in Wakhān, might support a number of comparatively
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