1 SUTLUJ. 259
2 sounding it, on account of its great rapidity.”8 The depth at this * Koonawur, 26.
3 spot must be very great, as the volume of water is considerable
4 even eighty miles further up, where, at Ling, the river is too broad
5 to admit of a rope-bridge, and is crossed by one of iron chains:
6 the breadth thereabouts being one hundred and twenty yards ; the
7 depth, at the lowest season, one foot and a half ; the rapidity seven
8 or eight miles an hour; the impetus of the stream such as that it
9 can be forded only by yaks or Tartarian kine if the depth exceed two
10 feet. The bed® of the river, a short distance below this, in lat. 9 Lloyd and Ge-
11 32° 38, long. 79° 4’, is 10,792 fect above the sea. Here the river rard, Map.
12 is by the natives called Langzhing-Khampa, or the river of
13 Langzhing ; lower down, Muksung ; then, Sanpoo; lower still,
14 Zeung-tee; lower down, Sumeedrung; in Busehar, Sutoodra,
15 or “ hundred-channeled,” whence the names Zadadrus! and Hesu- ' Rennell, 83.
16 drus of the classical writers ; lower down, it is generally called the
17 Sutluj, by which name it is also known up to its source. Though
18 the river?is in the upper part of its course a raging torrent, fall- 2 Gerard, Koona-
19 ing in several places a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet per """ '*
20 mile, with a clamorous noise, and displaying heaps of white foam,
21 yet so severe is the climate that for two hundred miles it is com-
22 pletely frozen for two months every winter. Where not fordable,
23 it is crossed either by a sango, or wooden bridge ; by a jhoola, or
24 rope-bridge, which the traveller passes on a seat suspended by
25 a loop made to slide along the rope, by means of a long string,
26 pulled by men stationed on the further bank; or by means of a
27 suzum, or foot-bridge, formed of cables, stretched parallel to each
28 other. ‘These frail suspension-bridges frequently give way, and
29 the passengers are dashed to pieces. There are also a few chain 4 Gerard, Koona-
30 bridges. At the confluence of the Spiti and Sutluj, the bed of ""” —
31 the river is 8,494 feet above the sen. Thé@ scene is described as
32 awfully eublime; according to Lloyd and Gerard,* “the charac 4 ii, 14,
33 ter of the guifat the confluence is certainly one of the wonders of
34 the world.” The Lee, or river of Spiti, issues forth from a rocky
35 channel, so narrow and deep as almost to seem subterranean,
36 with acalm blue deep current. The Sutluj is muddy and breaks
37 violently on the rocks with a tremendous roaring. The Spiti
38 has probably a larger body of water than the Sutluj.5 The § Gerard, Koonn-
39 former river averages from two hundred and fifty to three hundred """ * pene
40 feet in breadth; the latter, a short distance above the confluence,
41 s2 .