high, it is in the Sutlej valley, and has not a very healthy climate in August, so I was anxious to leave it as soon as at all possible. Seeing my weak state, Mr Pagell kindly offered to accompany me for a few days, and I was glad to have his companionship.

On the afternoon of the 5th August, we set off for Shipki, in Chinese Tibet, with the design of reaching it in four easy stages. Three hours and a half took us to our first camping-place, on some level ground beyond Dabling, and underneath the village of Dúbling-places the names of which have been transposed by the Trigonometrical Survey. To reach this, we had to descend from Pú to the Sutlej, and cross that river upon a sangpa, or very peculiar kind of wooden bridge. The Sutlej itself is here known to the Tibetans usually by the name of Sang-po, or "the river;" and I notice that travellers and map-makers are apt to get confused about these words, sometimes setting down a bridge as “the Sang-pa bridge," and a river as "the Sang-po river." Even our most accomplished geographers write of the upper portion of the Brahmapútra as the "Tsang-po river," that being the same as Sang-po, and meaning simply "the river," or the great river of the district. I have called the Namtú bridge, as it is named, beneath Pú peculiar; because, though about 80 feet above the stream, which is there over 100 feet across, it is only about three or four feet broad in the middle, is very shaky, and has no railing of any kind to prevent one going over it, and being lost in the foaming torrent below. A Púi yak once survived a fall from this bridge, being swept into a backwater there is a little way down the stream; but that was a mere chance, and the Bos grunniens can stand a great deal of knocking about.

These bridges are constructed by large strong beams. being pushed over one another, from both sides, until they approach sufficiently to allow of the topmast beams being connected by long planks. So rapid is the river below the bridge that Gerard was unable to fathom it with a 10-lb lead.

The path from this bridge towards the Chinese frontier kept up the left bank of the Sutlej, and not far above it, over tolerably level ground. The pieces of rock in the way were unpleasant for dandi-travelling; but it would take little labour to make a good road from beneath Pú to opposite the junction of the Sutlej and the Spiti river, there being a kind of broad ledge all the way along the left bank of the former stream, but, for the most part, a few hundred feet above it. Though easier for travelling, yet the Sutlej valley became wilder than ever as we advanced up it, though not so chaotic as lower down. On the side opposite to us there were almost perpendicular precipices thousands of feet in height, and the clay and mica-schist strata (interspersed here and there with granite) were twisted in the most grotesque manner. Shortly before, a Pú hunter had been killed by falling over these cliffs when in search of ibex. Above this precipice-wall high peaks were occasionally visible, but in our neighbourhood there was nothing but rocks and precipices, the foaming river, mountain torrents crossing the path, and a few edible pines, junipers, and tufts of fragrant thyme.

On the next day to Khalb, a short journey of four hours, the Sutlej gorge appeared still deeper and narrower. Quartz-rock became more plentiful, and, curiously enough, we passed a vein of very soft limestone.

Some of the mountain streams were rather difficult to pass, and one of them had to be crossed on two poles. thrown over it, though to have fallen into the torrent would have been utter destruction. At Khalb there is a most picturesque camping-ground, amid huge granite boulders, and well shaded by pines and junipers. It is opposite and immediately above one of the most extraordinary scenes in the world-the junction of the Sutlej, and the Lee or Spiti river. You cannot get near the junction at all, and there are few points from which you can even see it, so deeply is it sunk between close mural precipices; but you can look down towards it and see that the junction must be there. These two rivers have all the appearance of having cut their way down through hundreds of feet of solid rock strata. Even below the great precipices they seem to have eaten down their way and made deep chasms. I do not venture to say positively that such has been the case; but the phenomena presented are well worthy of the special attention of geologists; because, if these rivers have cut the passages which they appear to have cut, then a good deal more effect may be reasonably ascribed than is usually allowed to the action of water in giving the surface of our globe its present shape. But, though not positive, I am inclined to believe that the Lee and the Sutlej have cut a perpendicular gorge for themselves from a little below Khalb down to the present level of their waters-a distance, roughly speaking, of about 1200 feet, and this becomes more credible on considering the structure of the rock.

Gerard fell into the mistake (pardonable in his day) of calling this rock "stratified granite." Across the Chinese border the mountains are rolling plains of

quartz and whitish granite, and probably contain great gold deposits; but at the confluence of the Spiti river and the Sutlej, the rock is slate and schist strata containing veins and detached blocks of granite and quartz, and also various zeolites. These slates and schists are for the most part rather soft, and the whole strata have been so much disturbed by the process of elevation that they are peculiarly open to the action of disintegrating influences. The weather has broken it down greatly wherever there is an exposed surface, and extremely rapid rivers might eat their way down into it with considerable ease. Even the veins and blocks of solid granite and quartz which are interspersed among the strata, are calculated to aid rather than to hinder such a process. Though the Himálaya are at once the highest and the most extensive mountains in the world, yet there is some reason to believe that they are among the youngest; and this explains the present state of their narrow deep valleys. Their rivers carry out from them an immense amount of solid matter every year, but the process has not continued long enough to allow of the formation of broad valleys. Hence we have little more in the Himálaya than immense ravines or gorges. A valley there is something like the interior of the letter V, only the farther down you go, the more nearly perpendicular are its sides, while above 12,000 feet there is some chance of finding open, rounded, grassy slopes. There are also some comparatively open or flat valleys to be found above 12,000 feet; for at that height, where everything is frozen up during great part of the year, there are no large rivers, and no great action of water in any way.

At this junction of the two rivers there is an out

standing end of rock wall, which is pretty sure in course of time to cause a cataclysm similar to what occurred on the Sutlej in the year 1762 below Kunáwar province, when a shoulder of a mountain gave way and fell into the gorge, damming up the stream to a height of 400 feet above its normal level. Similar events have occurred in the upper Indus valley, but these were caused by avalanches of snow or ice. In the case to which I allude, and as will be the case at the junction of the Lee and Sutlej, the fall of a portion of the mountain itself caused the cataclysm; and when the obstruction gave way, which it did suddenly, villages and towns were destroyed by the tremendous rush of water. The Lee is almost as inaccessible and furious as the Sutlej, but it has calm pools, and its water is of a pleasant greenish hue, which contrasts favourably with the turbid, whitish-yellow of the latter stream. I may mention that I have written of the Spiti river as the Lee, or Lí, because it has got by that name into the maps; but it is not so called by the people of the country, and the name has probably arisen from a confused localising of it with the village of Lí, or Lío, which is to be found a short way above the confluence. On both sides of the Chinese border they call the Spiti river the Mapzja Jzazholmo. The former of these words means a peacock, but what the connection is I do not know. It must be admitted, however, that Mapzja Jzazholmo are not sounds well fitted to make their way with the general public, so I shall continue to speak of the Lee or Spiti river. I may also be excused from calling the Sutlej the Langchhenkhabad, or "elephant - mouth - fed" river, which