

PEEPSA FLIES. 73 



worthy incident that had hitherto occurred on our way, was 

 the destruction of an enormous wild cat of a light sandy- 

 grey colour, measuring 46 inches from tip to tip. 



Thus far our road had been fairly good for a mountain 

 bridle-path 5 or 6 feet wide. But after crossing the Goree, 

 where it was bridged by a few tree-stems thrown over it at a 

 narrow place between two rocks, we left the road and struck 

 up the left bank of the river by a mere track. In some places 

 our path lay close to the water's edge, in others it overhung 

 the stream, and sometimes at such a height as, at first, to 

 make looking down at it, surging impetuously along, rather 

 unpleasant. That evening we sheltered, coolies and all, under 

 a huge beetling rock, from which retreat we had to eject, with 

 the help of smoke, myriads of small black, biting flies, here 

 called " peepsas " or " moras," very like the " black-fly " of the 

 Canadian woods, and just as troublesome. Their bite leaves, 

 under the skin, a small blood-spot, which is very irritable. 



Our way now led up beside a torrent that leapt from rock 

 to rock as it tore furiously down a very steep gorge. After 

 several hours spent in fording and refording this ice-cold 

 stream where its sides were precipitous and impassable, and 

 in assisting each other in clambering up difficult places, we 

 exchanged this rocky defile for a stiff but less laborious pull 

 up a steep wooded slope of the Chipla. 



At length we reached an open space on the mountain-side, 

 where the sloping ground was cultivated in small stony fields 

 arranged in terraces. In these the inhabitants of the few 

 log- built huts that were scattered here and there over this 

 plateau, raised their scanty crops of " phapur " (buckwheat), 

 and other sorts of coarse grain of the millet kind called 

 " mundooa " and " chooa," just sufficient for their own wants. 

 The " chooa," which much resembles the cockscomb of Eng- 

 lish cottage gardens, at one stage of its growth assumes a 

 deep crimson colour, sometimes varied with bright yellow, 

 and the small patches of it that are dispersed over the hill- 



