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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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the appearance of a billowy mass of moraine, and would look
like a vast collection of gravel heaps, were it not that you see,
here and there, a cave or a cliff of ice, showing that the gravel
forms really only a very thin coating on the surface, and that
beneath is all pure solid ice. This ice is of an opaque white,
and not so green and transparent as other glaciers I have
seen, and the snow at the head of the glacier was different to
any I had seen before, for beneath the surface, or when it was
formed into lumps, it was of the most lovely pale transparent
blue. Yesterday I forgot to mention, too, that every flake
of snow that fell in the storm was a perfect hexagonal star,
most beautiful and delicate in form. The mountains on either
side of the valley, especially on the eastern side, are extremely
rugged and precipitous, affording little or no resting-place for
the snow, which drains off immediately into the glacier below.
The western range, the main Mustagh Range, was enveloped
in clouds nearly the whole time, and I only occasionally caught
a glimpse of some peaks of stupendous height, one of them,
the Gusherbrum, over twenty-six thousand feet, and others
twenty-four thousand feet. The snowfall on these mountains
must be very considerable, and it seems that this knot of lofty
mountains attracts the great mass of the snow-clouds, and gets
the share which ought to fall on the Karakoram, while these
latter, being of less height, attract the clouds to a less degree,
and are in consequence almost bare of snow.
Another heavy snowstorm fell during the night, and on the
following morning, September 18, I rode into the camp where
the Gurkha escort and heavy baggage had been left, and thence
sent back some men and fresh ponies to assist the other
wretched ponies, who were in a bad way, for they had had no
grass for four days, and at these high altitudes it is not wise
to give them more than four pounds of grain a day, for if more
than that is given, they seem to lose their breath easily ; and my
own pony, a few marches further on, died from this very cause.
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