fruit. At 11,560 feet elevation, I arrived at an immense rock of
gneiss, buried in the forest. Here currant-bushes were plentiful,
generally growing on the pine-trunks, in strange association with a
small species of _Begonia,_ a hothouse tribe of plants in England.
Emerging from the forest, vast old moraines are crossed, in a shallow
mountain valley, several miles long and broad, 12,000 feet above the
sea, choked with rhododendron shrubs, and nearly encircled by snowy
mountains. Magnificent gentians grew here, also _Senecio, Corydalis,_
and the _Aconitum luridum_ (n. sp.), whose root is said to be as
virulent as _A. ferox_ and _A. Napellus._* [The result of Dr.
Thomson's and my examination of the Himplayan aconites (of which
there are seven species) is that the one generally known as
_A. ferox,_ and which supplies a great deal of the celebrated poison,
is the common _A. Napellus_ of Europe.] The plants were all fully a
month behind those of the Lachen valley at the same elevation.
Heavy rain fell in the afternoon, and we halted under some rocks: as
I had brought no tent, my bed was placed beneath the shelter of one,
near which the rest of the party burrowed. I supped off half a yak's
kidney, an enormous organ in this animal.

On the following morning we proceeded up the valley, towards a very
steep rocky barrier, through which the river cut a narrow gorge, and
beyond which rose lofty snowy mountains: the peak of Tunkra being to
our left hand (north). Saxifrages grew here in profuse tufts of
golden blossoms, and _Chrysosplenium,_ rushes, mountain-sorrel
(_Oxyria_), and the bladder-headed _Saussurea,_ whose flowers are
enclosed in inflated membranous bracts, and smell like putrid meat:
there were also splendid primroses, the spikenard valerian, and
golden Potentillas.