On July 30 I started off to explore a neighbouring pass and valley which looked interesting. Mallory and Bullock were having a few days' rest before starting off again, and so they remained in camp. Riding a few miles up the Kharta Valley, I crossed the river by a bridge at the first village, and then had a very steep and stony climb of nearly 3,000 feet to the Samchung Pass, 15,000 feet. As we approached the pass, and entered a moister climate, the vegetation increased rapidly. On these slopes there were rhododendrons 5 feet high, mountain ash, birch, willows, spiraeas and juniper. At the top of the pass there was not much of a view, but prowling round I came across some very fine saussuraeas with their great white woolly heads and a wonderful meconopsis of a deep claret colour that I had never seen before. There were fifteen to twenty flowers on each stem, and it grew from 2 to 3 feet high. Eight varieties of gentians also grew in the same valley, and a quantity of other attractive Alpine plants. From the pass we descended about 500 feet into a delightful high level glen full of small lakes, evidently once upon a time formed by glaciers which must have filled the whole of the valley. I counted fourteen lakes in this valley, two or three of them being nearly half a mile long, and all of them of different colours varying from a turquoise blue to green and black. For some miles we rode and walked up the valley. The road consisted of big loose stones, often with water flowing underneath them, and usually with big holes in between, so that our ponies were lucky in not breaking their legs. There was then a steep climb which brought us on to a second pass, the Chog La, 16,100 feet, close to which were three small glaciers. Across the top of the pass there was a wall built many years ago as a second line of defence against the Gurkhas, the first line being on the top of the Popti Pass. Unfortunately the clouds now came up, and it began to rain, so that we had no view into the Kama Valley, though later on I was to make the acquaintance of this most charming valley. For an hour and a half I sheltered behind the wall, but as the clouds did not lift I returned towards Kharta. As we descended into the valley again the glimpses of the lakes seen between the mists reminded me much of the upper lakes at Killarney. There were the same ferns, willows, birch and rhododendrons, and much the same moist atmosphere. [Illustration: THE DZONGPEN OF KHARTA AND HIS WIFE.]