CAMPS IN THE UPPER FORESTS 49 



It was an amusing daily episode to see, when the 

 cooHes were being started, the rush that was made to 

 secure the HkeHest-looking loads, and the wrangle which 

 ensued when they imagined one had got a lighter load 

 than his neighbours. As care had been taken to weigh 

 them all with a spring balance, there was little to choose 

 between the loads, A spring balance is, however, decep- 

 tive, as it weighs quite differently at an elevation of 

 10,000 feet to what it does at the level of the sea. It is 

 no wonder that the inhabitants prefer the Government 

 of the British Raj when they recollect the oppression of 

 previous native rulers, who used invariably to employ 

 forced labour and pay the poor villagers nothing at all. 



The direct march from the village of Pana over the 

 Pilkhunta Pass, crossing a lofty spur of Nanda Devi, was 

 a long and trying one. From the summit there appeared 

 quite close northward the huge snowy triple peaks of 

 Gori Parwat, 22,700 feet high. The snow line ended at 

 15,000 feet, except in the upper valleys, which were filled by 

 snow and glacier. Below the snow line were bare rocks and 

 grassy slopes, where the wild sheep and goats, burrhel and 

 thar, grazed. There was then a belt of juniper and birch 

 forest, and below these stretched for miles a thick forest 

 of various pines, mostly spruce. This was a typical 

 Alpine region. In the survey it is put down as Lata 

 Forest, 38,000 acres of timber. The stems of the great 

 spruce trees {Abies Smithiana) stand out against the 

 rocky gorges some 200 feet in height. There were some 

 patches of beautiful feathery cedars {Deodara). One 

 stem measured thirty feet in girth. It seemed as if one 

 could step across to the sunlit slopes, but between was a 

 deep vaUey down miles beneath one's feet. Below could 

 be heard the roar of the Dhauli river, a snow torrent 

 rushing from the valley of the Niti, a well-known pass to 



4 



