76 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



and disturb you here. Next day we walked down into 

 the deep and hot valley of the Ram Ganga, a branch of 

 the Sarda river which joins the Kali at Rameswar. This 

 river comes down through a deep gorge from the slopes 

 of Nanda Kot, but does not issue from any glacier ; so 

 its waters are clear and not too cold for mahseer. We 

 fished with salmon flies, bathed in its cool waters, and 

 enjoyed our tiffin by the river, which looks, as it swirls 

 over great smooth boulders, like any Scotch salmon river, 

 while above on the grassy slopes are great pines like Scotch 

 firs. The walking on these slopes is terribly slippery, 

 from the carpet of long spines of the chir-trees, and big 

 nails in one's boots are much needed. A good iron sus- 

 pension bridge crosses the stream, and leads to Pithora- 

 garh, where the officers of a detachment of Gurkhas 

 entertained us next day, and reported having taken some 

 beautiful thirty-pound mahseer. 



Pithoragarh is on an open plateau, with villages and 

 much cultivation, and there are a few bungalows. The 

 descent to Askot, and thence down to the valley of the 

 Gori Ganga, is hot and steamy. This is indeed a hot and 

 deep gorge, with splendid forests of very tall chir pines 

 clinging to the sides of the towering hills, which spring 

 straight up from the river banks. Palm-trees also mingle 

 with the pines, and vie with them in the graceful curves 

 of their black stems and feathery heads. Dayhght 

 scarcely reaches here, the sky-line being some thousand 

 feet above the river and almost overhead among the 

 distant tree-tops ; and the icy water, white with quartz 

 mud from the Milam and other glaciers, sweeps by in a 

 vast volume of water 70 yards wide. Here there are 

 leeches on every stone, which fasten on your legs and 

 suck your blood with great avidity if you do not use 

 precautions in the shape of thick puttees for protection. 



