[Sidenote: INDUS VALLEY. _December, 1847._]
Kartash being situated at the northern or lower end of the great bend of the Indus, and in an extremely narrow part of the ravine, is a most sombre-looking place. It is possible, however, that in summer, when the villages are green with cultivation and fruit-trees, the appearance of this and other places may be less gloomy, and that, from having only seen this part of Tibet in the depth of winter, I may be disposed to regard it in too unfavourable a point of view. The abrupt and precipitous rise of the mountains on all sides must undoubtedly tend strongly to modify the summer temperature, which, from the want of rain, and the reflection from masses of bare rock, would otherwise be oppressive. The fort seems to have some good buildings, and to be kept in excellent order, and the village looked extensive and prosperous.
All along the narrow ravine, from Tolti nearly as far as Tarkata, deposits of alluvium were very extensively developed, not only in the valley of the river, but at considerable heights on the ridges. There was, however, I believe, none of the lacustrine clay, as contradistinguished from the coarser alluvium. I speak here with considerable hesitation, as I find with regret that I have not in my notes attended with sufficient care to the distinction between the two, not having at the time sufficiently adverted to their probably different origin. I am now disposed to think that in the narrow ravine above Tolti was situated the barrier which bounded on the east the lake basin of Iskardo, a vast inland sea, which must have extended thence in a north-westerly direction as far as Rondu. This barrier, if my supposition be correct, must have consisted of a mass of coarse drift or alluvium, entirely blocking up the narrow ravine to a height of three thousand feet or more above the present level of the Indus.
The mountains all along this ravine are extremely elevated, the peaks above Kartash (from which a pass leads to Khapalu on the Shayuk) being, I should think, not less than 18,000 feet. The bareness and desolation of their sides exceeded anything I had seen since leaving Iskardo, and quite equalled the most rugged parts of Tibet which I had yet visited. They consisted of large masses of rock, split and fractured in every direction, often very precipitous, without a vestige of soil, and with scarcely the slightest traces of vegetation. Immense tracts, both along the river and on the slopes of the ravines descending from the mountains, were covered with boulders or with angular fragments of rock, strewed irregularly on the surface, or piled in masses one on another. Granite formed the great mass of the mountains, mixed with stratified rocks, which were always highly metamorphic, but extremely variable in appearance, sometimes, though rarely, having the appearance of ordinary gneiss. A singular porphyritic rock appeared (as boulders) along the river in one place only.
