Leave Iskardo in the direction of Kashmir -- First march through snow to Turgu -- Lacustrine clay -- it extends into narrow valleys beyond Nar -- Gol -- Junction of Indus and Shayuk -- Parkuta -- Tolti -- Kartash -- Extensive lacustrine deposits -- Tarkata -- Road turns up the Dras river -- Ulding Thung -- Fall of snow -- Hardas -- Karbu -- Continued snow -- Dras -- Find pass in front shut by deep snow -- Obliged to return to Iskardo -- Rafts and rope-bridges on Indus -- _Elæagnus_ and Apricot apparently wild -- Winter at Iskardo.
[Sidenote: UPPER PART OF ISKARDO PLAIN. _December, 1847._]
On the 2nd of December I left Iskardo, in the direction of Kashmir, by way of Dras, all other routes being shut with snow. My first march was to Turgu, seven miles. The ground was all the way covered with snow which had fallen during the night, but it thawed a good deal during the day, making the journey rather unpleasant. The road lay along the south bank of the river, at first over the level platform of lacustrine clay, among large boulders, which were scattered over its surface, but soon descending by a narrow and steep footpath, on the face of the clayey cliff, to the level of the river, to cross a deep bay, from which the clay formation has been entirely removed, to a large village three miles from Iskardo, through the cultivation of which the road ascended gradually, and proceeded on the barren stony slopes behind. About five miles from Iskardo, a spur, from the mountain range on the south, which abuts in a scarped cliff upon the river, has been taken advantage of by the inhabitants to build a small gateway, through which the road is made to run. The extreme steepness of the mountain mass which lies to the south and east, makes it scarcely possible to approach Iskardo along the south bank of the river from these directions, without passing through this gateway, and, therefore, a small party of soldiers is kept on this rocky pass by the Sikh rulers of the country. A species of _Daphne_ was very common on the rocky hills about this pass, apparently an evergreen, as it was in full leaf in the midst of the snow. From the higher parts of the road, and from the rocky pass which overhangs the river, there is an extensive view over the barren sandy waste on the north bank of the river. The lacustrine clay is, at this end of the valley, very thick and but little excavated, forming cliffs which rise close to the river, which has, as it were, worn for itself a narrow channel in the clay formation. The banks or cliffs are of very different heights, and many of them consist of alluvial gravel and boulders, overlying and quite obscuring the clays. Behind Turgu, and in many places on the last part of the march, there are great masses of angular fragments of rock piled into a steeply sloping mass, as if they had fallen from the mountains behind, but so mixed with smaller fragments and with gravel, that it seems probable that they were accumulated under water.