1 24 Diary of an Excursion to the Shatool [No. 1 70, 



pale hue of a corpse ; the soul of the mountains has departed ; and if 

 the spectator be contemplating the ranges north of Simla, he says or 

 sings its requiem with the pun — " Sic transit gloria Mundi ! 



The descent from the Changsheel Pass to Looloot is by the south side 

 of a great spur of the mountain, and is so gradual and winding that the 

 forest is not reached for above two miles ; the first trees met are the 

 birch, the horned cherry, the mountain ash, the Kurshoo oak, the silver 

 fir, and most abundant coppice of Rhododendron campanulatum and 

 Rosa webbiana. The oak and fir soon predominate ; lower down the 

 forest is almost exclusively pindrow, with koil, rai, cedar and the sweet 

 Viburnum : and lastly, the usual thickets of Rosa sericea, Berberis, and 

 Indigofera, lead to the arable tracts. Except in the pindrow forest, 

 where it is steep and slippery, the path is generally very good this 

 stage. Water boils here at 198°, indicating an elevation of from 8,000 

 to 8,500 feet : but the thermometer had not been verified, nor the water 

 distilled, both very necessary to the accuracy of the process. Looloot 

 is an insignificant place, and the inhabitants seem a poor, filthy and 

 rather ill-looking race. They have had however, the spirit to introduce 

 the cultivation of the potato, of which we obtained a small but wel- 

 come supply. This is the only site beyond Muhasoo where we observed 

 any. A stream flows towards the Pabur below Looloot; the opposite 

 side of the glen, to the SW., is thickly peopled, and beautifully cultivated, 

 the Bathoo as usual in the greatest proportion. With all its brilliancy, 

 the bread made from its flour seems bitter and unwholesome. 



September 26th. — To Chergaon, eight or nine miles, in three hours : 

 the first part of the route is a descent of from 1,500 to 2,000 feet down 

 grassy mountains to the Pabur, which we crossed by a sanga of two 

 spars opposite Tikree. The path then keeps the right bank to Chergaon, 

 and is good, except in one place where it passes for a few hundred 

 yards on a narrow rocky ledge, about 200 feet above the river. Here, 

 in 1833, a friend of mine lost his ghoont by the fall of a small bridge, 

 and in general, it is not advisable to take ponies beyond Chergaon. 

 In May and June, when the glen of the Pabur is excessively warm, 

 the traveller to the Shatool and Boorun Passes may avoid it by keeping 

 the heights above the right bank by a route from Huttoo, given by 

 Captain Hutton, in one of the volumes of the Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal. Even at this season we found the temperature 



