1839.J Journal of a trip through Kunawur. 935 



by which not only were my shoes cut to pieces, but my feet blistered 

 and swollen also. 



On entering the town of Soongnum I was met by a son of the 

 vuzeer, who welcomed me with a plate of raisins, and escorted me to a 

 small bungalow of one room, built long ago by a Dr. Wilson. Short, 

 ly afterwards the vuzeer himself paid me a visit, and proved to be no 

 less a person than the frank and honest Puttee Ram, the friend of 

 Dr. Gerard, and the source from whence he derived much of his infor- 

 mation regarding the higher portions of the hills towards Ladak and 

 Chinese Tartary. He has only lately been raised to his present rank. 

 Time has not slept with him, nor failed to produce upon his hardy and 

 once active frame its usual effects. He is now grey and bent with 

 age, and his sons have succeeded him in their trade with the people of 

 Choomontee and Ladak. The old man entered at once into a history 

 of his acquaintance with Dr. Gerard and Mr. Fraser, and talked with 

 pride over the dangers he had encountered with the former in their 

 rambles through Spiti and its neighbourhood. He asked me if I had 

 ever heard his name before, and the old man's eyes actually sparkled 

 with delight, when pointing to an account of one of Gerard's trips, I 

 told him his name was printed there. He has not only been a great 

 traveller through the upper hills, but has also visited Kurnal, Delhi, 

 Hansi, and Hardwar, though like all true mountaineers he sighed for 

 home, and saw no place in all his travels to equal his own rugged hills ; 

 and truly I commend him for his choice. He is a tall, strongly built, 

 broad shouldered fellow, but hideously ugly, his eyelids being large 

 and sticking out over his eyeballs like cups, beneath which his eyes 

 are scarcely visible. He has indeed, a face as like a mastiff's as I 

 ever saw one. 



From him I obtained a man who understood the Tartar language, 

 to accompany me through Spiti, and he assured me I should experience 

 no difficulties, as there was now a road across some parts of the moun- 

 tains where, as in the days when Gerard first visited those parts, there 

 was none at all. He informed me also that the lake called Chum- 

 mor-rareel was only four days' journey from Dunkur in Spiti, so I de- 

 termined if possible to get a peep at it. On inquiring for fossils, he 

 said that Spiti produced but few ; chiefly ammonites (Salick ram) 

 which were found near Dunkur, but that the best place to procure 

 them was on the Gungtang pass, near Bekhur, but the Chinese were so 

 jealous of strangers looking at their country, that if I went there 

 I should not be allowed to bring any thing away. Besides this, the 

 pass was at the present season impassable, and from the lateness and 



