It only differs from Leh and Stok castles in having blue
glass in some of the smaller windows. In the family temple, in
addition to the usual life-size images of Buddha and the Triad, there
was a female divinity, carved at Jallandhur in India, copied from a
statue representing Queen Victoria in her younger days--a very
fitting possession for the highest government official in Lahul. The
thakur, Hara Chang, is wealthy and a rigid Buddhist, and uses his
very considerable influence against the work of the Moravian
missionaries in the valley. The rude path down to the bridle-road,
through fields of barley and buckwheat, is bordered by roses,
gooseberries, and masses of wild flowers.
The later marches after reaching Darcha are grand beyond all
description. The track, scaffolded or blasted out of the rock at a
height of from 1,000 to 3,000 feet above the thundering Bhaga, is
scarcely a rifle-shot from the mountain mass dividing it from the
Chandra, a mass covered with nearly unbroken ice and snowfields, out
of which rise pinnacles of naked rock 21,000 and 22,000 feet in
altitude. The region is the 'abode of snow,' and glaciers of great
size fill up every depression.
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