On the 4th of September, we continued our progress up the Piti valley, which had quite the same aspect as on the day before, encamping on the left bank of the river, opposite to the village of Rangrig, on a desert spot among limestone rocks, at an elevation of 12,300 feet. Here we had attained our furthest limit in a north-westerly direction, our road now turning to the right, and ascending a considerable valley towards the Parang pass, in a direction which promised much novelty and interest, as it had only been traversed by one traveller, the unfortunate Trebeck, who, in the year 1822, travelled from Le to Dankar by this route. The further course of the Piti river, which, as we learn from Moorcroft's travels, was visited in 1822 by Captain Mercer, was afterwards surveyed by Captain Broome. It communicates with Lahul, which is the upper part of the valley of the Chandrabhaga or Chenab river, by the Kulzum pass, a depression in that great branch of the trans-Sutlej Himalaya, by which the waters of the Sutlej and its tributaries on the east, are separated from those of the Chenab and Beas.
During our journey through the district of Piti, the weather had been almost uniformly dry and serene, though we were now in the very height of the Indian rainy season. The only exception occurred while we were encamped at Changar, on the lower part of the Parang river, about the 29th of August, when the sky was for two days very cloudy, and on one night it rained gently for nearly half an hour. The clouds were, however, high, and never dense, and the unsettled state of the atmosphere was of very short continuance. While it lasted, it was accompanied by violent wind, very irregular in direction.
[Sidenote: SALINE INCRUSTATIONS. _September, 1847._]
In every part of Piti we found the margins of springs, and the grassy turf which grew on low swampy spots along the river, covered with a saline incrustation, in the form of a dry efflorescence, which encrusted the blades of grass. It appeared to be confined to the vicinity of water, the barren rocky tracts being destitute of it. This saline matter, as elsewhere in Tibet, consists of sesquicarbonate of soda, and, as a consequence of the abundance of that alkali, soda-producing plants were common, especially _Chenopodiaceæ_, among which the common _Salsola Kali_ was very abundant.