1840.] Journal of a trip through Kunawur, fyc. 505 



probable they could not have been free from it, or open to travellers 

 before the fresh autumnal falls occurred.* 



The season of 1837, which in the Provinces, from want of rain, 

 brought sickness and scarcity upon the inhabitants, was also a time 

 of trial and misery to the poor Spiti Tartars, inhabiting the villages 

 beyond the fort of Dunkur. It was, however, not the want, but the 

 excess of rain, a thing so unusual in those parts, which caused the 

 failure of their crops, by rotting them on the ground ; and the little 

 that escaped this scourge, and which would eventually have ripened, 

 was cut off so early as the month of August by a heavy fall of snow 

 which crushed and beat down the grain, and rendered it useless. At 

 the time therefore when I visited those parts, so far from being able to 

 furnish me with supplies, the wretched people were actually reduced, 

 like beasts of the field, to seek for herbs and wild roots with which to 

 satisfy the cravings of hunger, and they were rendered almost frantic 

 with delight by the gift of a handful of meal, which, though straitened 

 as we were ourselves, it would have been inhuman to deny them. 

 Many have been obliged to leave their homes and go as labourers 

 to Ladak, who were lately in possession of cultivated lands. 



This, it would appear, is by no means an uncommon occurrence in 

 the higher portions of the valley, for the people in speaking of the 

 quantity of grain likely to be gathered from their fields, always put in 

 the proviso, " if the snow does not fall early." 



Around the village of Gewmil, many ponds are found for the 

 reception of the snow water, from which the daily quantity requisite 

 for the irrigation of the crops is supplied. On one of these, at this 

 enormous height, were a pair of Brahminee ducks, which had fled from 

 the summer heats of the Gangetic Provinces to revel in the cool and 

 secluded retreats afforded on the snowy heights of Tartary. 



Here, too, among the frowning cliffs, the raven and the vulture- 

 eagle were seen, as also the red-legged and yellow-billed choughs. 



From one of the peaks, behind this village, which attained the height 

 of 14,714 feet, I beheld the course of the Spiti river, winding its way for 

 miles along the valley, until it was lost in a turn of the mountains. 

 From this spot I looked down upon the village of Larra, whose houses 

 and cultivation showed like mere specks, when seen from a perpen- 

 dicular height of 2,700 feet. 



* This proved to be the case, as the Tartars could not descend to the Rampore fair, 



3 T 



