[Sidenote: NARROW GORGE. _October, 1847._]
Below the village of Unmaru, the width of the valley had so much diminished that many of the lateral spurs advanced close to the river. Several of these prominent spurs consisted of trap rocks, various forms of basalt and greenstone occurring, with not unfrequently veins of coarse serpentine. Stratified rocks, however, still continued, but the hard black slate was often with difficulty distinguishable from the basalt.
My encamping ground at Kuru was on the north side of the river, and close to the gorge into which the Shayuk disappeared among rocks of black slate, which rise almost perpendicularly from the river. A small tributary, descending from the north, ran parallel and close to the rugged mountain spur which formed the barrier of the valley; and immediately above, a deep bay or recess in the mountains was entirely filled with beds of loose sand, resting on the alluvial clay formation. The appearance of the place was altogether most singular. Much of the light sandy beds were evidently of very recent origin, probably referable to the great flood five years before, at which time the waters, suddenly checked at the gorge, after having spread out _ad libitum_ in the open valley of Nubra, rose to a height of not less than fifty feet above their usual level, and required several days to subside. The beds of clay under the loose sand were all stratified, and were, no doubt, referable to the same lacustrine formation as the fossiliferous beds observed higher up the valley of the Shayuk.
[Sidenote: WARIS RAVINE. _October, 1847._]
From Kuru there is no road along the bank of the river, the rocks being on both sides too precipitous to permit of a passage, and the river too deep to be forded. In winter, when the river is frozen, travellers are able to continue their course along its bed by proceeding on the ice in those places where the steepness of the rocks obstructs the passage; but at other seasons it is necessary to make a long _détour_, and to ascend a lateral ravine for eight miles before a point is reached where the steep ridge is capable of being crossed. Leaving Kuru on the morning of the 26th of October, I encamped at the village of Waris, elevated 12,400 feet, among a few fields from which the crops had long been cleared. The few huts which formed the village contained no inhabitants, being abandoned, as soon as the harvest has been reaped and housed, for the more temperate climate of the river valley.