“In order to pass these gorges, the path ascends and descends many thousands of feet. Looking down from the ledges of the precipices, one gets occasional glimpses of the torrent below; the cliffs above frequently rising as much as 10,000 feet above the river-bed, and ending in snow-capped peaks. Here and there the promontories of the cliffs afford a grandiose panorama, which rewards the exertions of the terrific ascents, but as these alternate ascents and descents are not single occurrences, but the normal nature of the track, ever climbing up by crazy ladder-paths and plunging amongst tangled undergrowth, one ceases to revel in the scenery, and would forego those bird’s-eye views from the cloud-level for the sake of a few yards of marching on the flat. “At the end of our second march, where the track appeared to come to an end, while pitching our camp in a small clearing, swarms of bees descended upon us, scattering our porters in all directions; they did no harm, however. Our third march was a struggle through pathless jungle, and, mounting over the great central gorge, on the far side of which we dropped down to the river-bed, we found a narrow strip of sand, just room enough to pitch our camp. This was one of the most beautiful spots seen in the valley. Wild flowers grew here in great profusion, the most conspicuous amongst them being some great white lilies fully 6 feet in height. That evening the rain, which had been falling most of the day, cleared, and the rising clouds revealed the luxuriant walls of the valleys, which seemed to rise almost vertically above us, with black caverns beneath, where the trees trailed and projected over the water’s edge. “During the fourth march we again struck the track which is apparently used by Tibetans who come down from the Kharta end of the valley to get wood. This led us up the side valley, descending from the mountains round about Chog La. We camped towards the top of the valley, and next day crossed by a new pass, which we judged to be about 16,000 feet in height, and then crossed the Sakia Chu, which descends from the Samchang Pass across the Yulok La, and descended on Kharta.”