About three miles from Changar, an abrupt descent led from the platform on which we had been travelling, to the level of the banks of the river, more than 1000 feet lower. The path by which we descended was steep, rocky, and difficult. The rock was still clay-slate, with granite veins. The granite in general very much exceeded in quantity the rock into which it had been injected, as was well seen on several precipitous cliffs along the course of the stream, in which the stratification of the slaty rock and the ramifications of the granite could be examined in detail. The banks of the river were adorned with a species of _Myricaria_, a small tree, with very delicate graceful foliage and beautiful rose-coloured flowers.
[Sidenote: CHINESE FRONTIER. _August, 1847._]
On reaching the small streamlet which forms the frontier of the Chinese dominions, we found, as indeed we expected, that there was no intention of permitting us to proceed by the direct road to Hanle; and all arguments to induce a compliance with our wish proving ineffectual, we agreed to take the route up the Piti river by Dankar, and were then permitted to proceed about a mile, to the village of Kyuri, where we encamped for the day. I have now no doubt that if we had resolutely advanced, no serious opposition to our progress would have been made; but our instructions were so precise that we should not have been justified in using the smallest degree of force, or incurring any risk of a collision.
To reach Kyuri[9], we crossed the Zungsam river by a very remarkable natural bridge, composed of an enormous block of granite, which has in some way been placed across the stream, at a spot where it is much contracted in width, flowing in a deep rocky fissure from fifteen to twenty-five feet in width, evidently of great depth. At this point a considerable number of boulders of large size are piled on both banks, of which the one that spans the channel is eighty-five feet in length and probably not less than forty in width and twenty in depth; it is placed obliquely across the stream, its left or southern extremity being lower, and inclined at so considerable an angle that the passage is one of some difficulty for horses and loaded cattle, though for men, with ordinary care, it is quite easy. The higher end is so much elevated above the surface on which it rests, that a rudely constructed stair of stones is necessary to enable travellers to descend.