Leaving Behind The Dras Villages And Their Fertility, The Narrow Road
Passes Through A Flaming Valley Above The Dras, Walled
In by bare,
riven, snow-patched peaks, with steep declivities of stones, huge
boulders, decaying avalanches, walls and spires of
Rock, some
vermilion, others pink, a few intense orange, some black, and many
plum-coloured, with a vitrified look, only to be represented by
purple madder. Huge red chasms with glacier-fed torrents, occasional
snowfields, intense solar heat radiating from dry and verdureless
rock, a ravine so steep .and narrow that for miles together there is
not space to pitch a five-foot tent, the deafening roar of a river
gathering volume and fury as it goes, rare openings, where willows
are planted with lucerne in their irrigated shade, among which the
traveller camps at night, and over all a sky of pure, intense blue
purpling into starry night, were the features of the next three
marches, noteworthy chiefly for the exchange of the thundering Dras
for the thundering Suru, and for some bad bridges and infamous bits
of road before reaching Kargil, where the mountains swing apart,
giving space to several villages. Miles of alluvium are under
irrigation there, poplars, willows, and apricots abound, and on some
damp sward under their shade at a great height I halted for two days
to enjoy the magnificence of the scenery and the refreshment of the
greenery. These Kargil villages are the capital of the small State
of Purik, under the Governorship of Baltistan or Little Tibet, and
are chiefly inhabited by Ladakhis who have become converts to Islam.
Racial characteristics, dress, and manners are everywhere effaced or
toned down by Mohammedanism, and the chilling aloofness and haughty
bearing of Islam were very pronounced among these converts.
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