the Author most, he heard the notes of the English thrush. The peasantry who were seen on this and the preceding day, were natives of Kumaoon, who yearly descend, after the unwholesome season is passed, to pasture their cattle, and cultivate the best and driest spots of the forest with barley and wheat, which they reap and carry back with them before April is far advanced. They were of middle size, slender and active, very scantily dressed, and unarmed, except with large sticks. "The women," says the Bishop, "might have been good-looking, if they had been less sun-burnt and toil-worn, or if their noses and ears had not been so much enlarged by the weight of the metal rings with which they were ornamented. Their dress was a coarse cloth, wrapped round their waist, with a black blanket over the head and shoulders. All had silver bracelets, and anklets apparently of silver also; a circumstance which, to a European eye, contrasted singularly with the exceeding poverty of their general appearance. Their industry seems very great. In every part where the declivity was less steep, so as to admit a plough or a spade, we found little plots of ground, sometimes only four feet wide and ten or twelve long, in careful and neat cultivation. Some of these were ranged in little terraces one above the other, supported by walls of loose stones; and these evidences of industry and population were the more striking, because we literally did not pass a single habitation. Even at Beemthâl, besides the Company's guard-room and warehouses, only one miserable hut was visible." Beemthâl is a very beautiful place ;—" a little mountain valley, surrounded on three sides by wooded hills, and, on the fourth, by a tract of green meadow, with a fine thâl or lake of clear water, abounding with trout." A small and very rude pagoda of grey stone, with a coarse slate roof, beneath some fine peepul-trees, has the appearance of a little church. The climate might favour the illusion by which the Bishop was transported in imagination to the wilder parts of Wales. Beemthâl is 3200 feet above the level of the sea, and 2700 above the plain of Rohilcund. Yet, Mount Gaughur, which closes the prospect, is 5400 feet higher; and on its summit, the traveller sees peaks of 16,000 feet towering above him still. 66 The next day's route from Beemthâl, lay over the neck of this mountain. After coasting the lake for about a mile, it passed, for about thirteen more, by a most steep and rugged road, through a succession of glens and forests of the most sublime and beautiful character. "My attention," says the Bishop, was completely strained, and my eyes filled with tears; every thing around was so wild and magnificent, that man appeared as nothing; and I felt myself as if climbing the steps of the altar of God's great temple. The trees, as we advanced, were, in a large proportion, fir and cedar; but many were ilex; and, to my surprise, I still saw even in these alpine tracts, many ́venerable peepul-trees, on which the white monkeys were playing their gambols. After winding up a wild romantic chasm, we arrived at the gorge of the pass between the two principal summits, nearly 8,600 feet above the sea. And now the snowy mountains, which had been so long eclipsed, opened on us in full magnificence. Nundadevi was immediately opposite; Kedarnauth was not visible from our present situation; and Meru was only seen as a very distant peak. The eastern mountains, however, rose into great consequence, and were very glorious objects as we wound down the hill on the other side. On Mount Gaughur, I found the first ice which I have come in contact with. The little streams on the northern side had all a thin crust on them; and the hoar-frost, in one or two places, made the path so slippery, that I thought it best to dismount." a very Ramghur, the Bishop's halting-place, is " small and poor village, seated by a fine rapid stream, in a narrow winding valley, the sides of which, to a very great height, are cultivated in narrow terraces with persevering and obstinate industry; though the soil is so stony that many of the little fields resemble the deposite of a torrent, more than an arable piece of ground. The Company's warehouse and guard-house stand at a little height above the village. There was a castle here during the time of the Gorkha power, now dismantled and gone to decay. A great deal of iron ore is found in the neighbourhood, which the villagers were employed in washing from its grosser impurities, and fitting it to be transported to Almorah for smelting. The houses, people, children, and animals shewed marks of poverty. Almost all the children were naked, and the grown persons, except their black blankets, had scarcely a rag to cover them. The houses were ranged in a line, with a row of still smaller huts opposite, which seemed to be for their cattle, though, in England, they might have passed for very poor pigsties. The houses, indeed, were little better, none of them high enough to stand up in, the largest not more than ten feet square, and the door, the only aperture, a square hole of about four feet. The people were little and slender, but apparently muscular and active; their countenances intelligent and remarkably mild; and one or two of their women were not very far from pretty. This tribe of the Khasya nation are decidedly migratory, dividing their time between the hills and the forest, according to the seasons. Even here are numerous traces of the superstition of India. We passed some rudely carved stones with symbols of Brahminical idolatry; and three miserable-looking beggars, two Brahmins and a virajee, came to ask alms in a strange mixture between Khasya and Hindoostanee." The next day's route led over another ridge, by an ascent yet more rugged and steep than that over the Gaughur. On reaching the summit, a still more extensive and panoramic view of the snowy range was obtained ; and the guides pointed out Meru, “the greatest of all mountains, out of which Gunga flows." "The horizon was terminated by a vast range of ice and snow, extending its battalion of white, shining spears from east to west, as far as the eye could follow it; the principal points rising like towers in the glittering rampart, but all connected by a chain of humbler glaciers." On one of the middle range of mountains, a little lower than the rest, some white buildings and a few trees appeared, with a long zig-zag road winding up the face of the hill. This was Almorah. Several toilsome ascents had yet to be surmounted, however, before the Bishop reached the foot of the hill on which stands this " very curious and interesting town," as he not without reason styles it. Almorah, the capital of Kumaoon, consists chiefly of one long street, running along a mountain ridge from the fort westward to a smaller block-house eastward; with scattered bungalows,* inhabited for the most part * These bungalows are small low cottages of stone, with slated roofs, built by Government for the accommodation of any of their civil or military servants who might come to reside here for their health. They are built strong and low, on account of the frequent earthquakes to which Kumaoon is subject. "Scarcely a year passes without a shake or two," by Europeans, to the right and left hand onthe declivity. "The houses all stand on a lower story of stone, open to the street, with strong square pillars, where are the shops. Above, the buildings are of timber, exactly like those of Chester, in one, or sometimes two very low stories, and surmounted by a sloping roof of heavy grey slate, on which many of the inhabitants pile up their hay in small stacks for winter consumption. The town is very neat. The street has a natural pavement of slaty rock, which is kept beautifully clean; the stone part of the houses is well whitewashed, and adorned with queer little paintings; and the tradesmen are not only a fairer, but a much more respectable-looking race than, from the filth and poverty of the agricultural Khasyas," the Bishop had expected to see. He passed two or three little old pagodas and tanks, and a Mussulman burial-ground. The Mussulmans were treated with great rigour here during the Ghoorkalese Government: they are now fully protected, but their number is small. The fort of Almorah is "a very paltry thing, so illcontrived as to be liable to escalade, and so ill-situated as to be commanded from two opposite points of land, and not to have a drop of water within its walls.* It is out of repair and not worth mending." The lines for the provincial troops are at Havelbagh, in the valley at the northern foot of the mountain of Almorah, about 2500 feet below; and here, the Bishop took up his residence for a few days at the house of the commandant. The situation is very picturesque. At a considerable depth below the houses, a black stream, the Koosilla, runs with much violence through a nar * See page 332 of our second volume, |