922 Journal of a Trip to the Burenda Pass in 1836. [Nov. 



On the morning of the 11th October we proceeded to Janglig 

 where we again stopped to breakfast after a downhill march, beneath 

 a grove of large elm and horse-chestnut trees. Here we found im- 

 mense quantities of small garnets imbedded in the mica slate with 

 which the walls are built. After breakfast we proceeded down a very 

 steep and rocky road to the banks of the Sapan, a stream which 

 empties itself into the Pabbar, and over which is a tolerable sankho ; 

 from this our road lay through a very beautiful glen on the banks of 

 the Pabbar ; it was thickly wooded and by the side of the path many 

 beautiful flowers were growing, and among them several species of 

 impatiens or wild balsam, one of them of a pure milky white. 



This day we encamped again at Piki which has an elevation of 

 8759 feet. The distance from Janlig is about 6J miles. 



From Piki, instead of retracing our steps to Simla, by the route 

 we had come, i. e. keeping the heights and marching across the ridge 

 of the hills, we proceeded by the regular road down the valley of the 

 Pabbar, which is a most beautiful and richly cultivated country, with 

 the river from which it derives its name running through it. The 

 crops are chiefly rice and are abundant. Pulse of several kinds is also 

 grown here. 



From the accounts we had heard, before leaving Simla, of the 

 poverty of the natives and the scarcity of supplies in the interior, we 

 were prepared to see a country almost void of cultivation. 



This, however, is far from being the case, and in the valley of the Pabbar 

 especially, the luxuriance of the crops could scarcely be exceeded. In- 

 deed, throughout our trip, nothing could be more opposed to such an 

 idea, the natives stout and healthy in appearance, their clothing good, 

 and crops luxuriant : every thing in fact bespeaking abundance. 

 That they have sometimes little to spare to travellers, does not arise 

 from any want of necessaries, but is solely attributable to their sending 

 all the grain out of the country, keeping merely sufficient for the 

 wants of themselves and families, and exporting the surplus which is 

 great, into Kandwar and the higher states where grains are not so 

 easily cultivated, and where therefore they find a ready and profitable 

 market. This surplus is either sold, or bartered for salt and other 

 necessaries. Their rents, too, are often paid in kind ; that is, in the 

 produce of their lands. Thus it not unfrequently happens, that the very 

 people who are striving to impress upon the mind of a traveller, that 

 they are pinched by want and poverty, are in fact comparatively rich, 

 and this dissimulation is prompted by their avarice as an excuse for 

 extorting a heavy remuneration for the pittance doled out to him. 



