94 Diary of an Excursion to the Shatool [No. 170. 



The Dolomioea macrocephala is a very common plant in all the upper 

 Himalaya : Royle's plate, perhaps for want of space, represents the leaves 

 erect, which are naturally quite procumbent ; the root is highly valued 

 as incense, and as such, is presented to gods and rajas. The Picrorhiza 

 kurrooa grows abundantly on dry rubble from Kala Koondar to a great 

 height on each side of the Shatool Pass, but I did not notice it else- 

 where ; the root is excessively bitter, and is sold under the name of 

 Kurrooa in the Simla Bazar ; it is the Kutkee of Kemaon. 



September \2th. — To Doodach, eight or nine miles, which our 

 coolies performed in four and a half hours. The route is much better 

 and more easy than yesterday's, gradually rising over slopes, for the 

 most part gentle, and crossing many rivulets from the left, some of them 

 chalybeate. The banks of these exhibit in some places great walls 

 of gneiss rock. The forest is now entirely lost sight of, and fuel 

 must be brought in from Kala Koondar. Doodach is an open and 

 level spot, well adapted for an encampment; it must be fully 13,000 

 feet above the sea, and is probably identical with the Kuneejan, of 

 Gerard. We had hard frost at night. The Undretee, a mere rivulet, 

 rises in a bed of snow, a little higher up, and flows about 200 feet 

 below us. Immediately above it, the opposite bank rises to a very 

 great height, in a magnificent facade of bare gneiss cliffs, the ledges 

 supporting deep beds of snow, and terminating to the north in a steep 

 conical peak, called the Dhuneer ka Thood. From these crags several 

 avalanches of rock fell down at night, with the noise of thunder. 

 Between our camp and the base of the Pass (about a mile,) the rock is 

 quartz, in immense couUes of shapeless masses, heaped together without 

 order and very difficult to climb over. They have fallen from a huge 

 and very curious rectangular mass, which forms the western side of the 

 Pass. Several interesting plants abound here ; the Saussurea or Aplo- 

 taxis gossypina, clothed in dense wool, raises its conical form every 

 where on the rocky rubble to the top of the Pass, resembling a vegeta- 

 ble spectre. It is called Kusbul, Munna Kuswal, and Bhoot-pesh, and 

 is offered to the gods, who have evinced their care and favour by cloth- 

 ing it so warmly, exactly as they have protected the yak and alpine 

 goat with a thick waistcoat of pushmeena. Another Aplotaxis is defended 

 by a different contrivance ; the leaves are gradually converted into large 

 yellowish transparent bracts, enclosing the colts-foot-like blossoms as 



