Southern Tibet : vol.4 / Page 524 (Color Image)

0524	Southern Tibet : vol.4

valley down to the green meadows of *Chung-lung*. From the second, *Tsaldöt-la*, the road goes down by a real labyrinth of ridges, crests, deep furrows and small valleys. Sometimes we go both on the left and the right side of the same ridge, in both cases with deep valleys on the sides. These valleys were now dry, and they are very short.

From the pass we have a slope of nearly 300 m. down to a little patch of even grass-covered ground on the right bank of the river, where *Camp CCCCLXII* was pitched, just below the rocky gate by which the *Satlej* comes out of its narrow gorge. The river is here in one compact mass of brownish grey water rolling in foaming waves in the middle of the course. The velocity might be 3 m. and the breadth 50 or 60 m. There are no rapids in sight. Our guide said that if it had been possible to cross the river here, we would have had a comfortable road on the left side the next day. Just east of the first *Tsaldöt* Pass, the living rock consisted of greyish white fine-grained quartzite. Between the two thresholds we had grey or yellow fine-grained limestone. On the way down from the second *Tsaldöt* Pass, the rock again was yellow quartzite with patches of rust.

On *August 4th*, our road goes S. W. for 7.5 km. only descending from 4,268 m. to 4,259 m., or 9 m. on this stretch which is only 1 m. in 833 m., being a very gradual fall. In the course of the afternoon, the river fell 3 cm., but during the night it rose nearly 7 cm. These oscillations chiefly depend upon the rain. The day's march followed the river closely. By a little gorge, the path goes up to a mostly natural, very narrow and sometimes dangerous cornice, in the solid rock. It goes up and down, out and in along projecting spurs and into small gorges and is sometimes very steep. Sometimes it passes the slippery planes of the strata and is, as a rule, some 60 m. above the river. The rock is a folded white fine-grained quartzite and grey or reddish limestone. Just above the bridge it consists of yellowish calcareous sinter and greyish white quartzite. At the bridge there is a low ridge of white crystalline granular limestone, which is cut through by the river, the strata forming an anticlinal.

From the first difficult passage of this road, we go down to the neighbourhood of the river, leaving a few small wild and rocky gorges to our right. Here and there are the remains of fluviatile terraces of pebbles and shingle alternating with sand and clay, all in horizontal layers and deposited by the river at an earlier epoch. They often form lists, borders and edges and bands of different colour, and are sometimes undermined by the river. Along the left bank, the highest are seen at some 70 or 80 m. above the river. For a while, the path goes along the base of the right terrace which is cut through by ravines. Occasionally there is a little even belt left below them, with grass. At the left or southern side of the *Satlej*, there is a comparatively broad valley coming out, in the mouth of which barley is

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

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

Citation Information

OCR Text

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