1242 On the Aborigines of the sub-Himalayas. [Dec. 



about 20 miles extreme length and breadth, cultivated highly through- 

 out, and from 4200 to 4700 feet above the sea. The only other valley 

 is that of Jumla which is smaller and higher, yielding barley (Hordeum 

 celeste) as the great valley, rice. The sub -Himalayas form a confused 

 congeries of enormous mountains, the ranges of which cross each other 

 in every direction, but still have a tendency to follow with their princi- 

 pal ridges the grand line of the snows, or a S. E. and N. W. diagonal 

 between 2° and 35°. These mountains are exceedingly precipitous and 

 have only narrow glens dividing their ridges, which are remarkable for 

 continuity or the absence of chasm and rupture, and also for the deep 

 bed of earth every where covering the rock and sustaining, a matchless 

 luxuriance of tree and herb vegetation, which is elicited in such profu- 

 sion by innumerable springs, rills and rivers, and by the prevalence 

 throughout all three regions of the tropical rains in all their steadiness 

 and intensity. There are three or four small lakes in Kumaon situated 

 near each other, and three or four more in Pokra similarly juxtaposed. 

 But in general the absence of lakes is a remarkable feature of the Sub- 

 hemalayas at present, for anciently the great valleys of Cashmir and 

 Nepal, with several others of inferior size, were in a lacustrine state. 

 The great rivers descend from the snows in numerous feeders, which 

 approach gradually and unite near the verge of the plains, thus forming 

 a succession of deltic basins, divided by the great snowy peaks as water- 

 sheds, thus — 



Basins. Peaks. 



1. Alpine Gangetic basin. Nanda Devi. 



2. Alpine Karnalic basin. Dhavalagiri. 



3. Alpine Gandacean basin. Gosainthan. 



4. Alpine Kosean basin. Kanchanjhinga. 



5. Alpine Tishtan basin. Cholo (near Chumalari, which de- 



tached) standing on the plain of 

 Tibet. 



In the two first of these 5 regions, all of which are plainly indicat- 

 ed by the distribution of the waters, the people are mongrel and mix- 

 ed, save in the north-west parts, where the Rongbo or Cis-Nivean 

 Bhotias, the Garhwalis and the inhabitants of Kanaver and Hangrang 

 are of Tibetan stock. The 3d, or Gandacean basin (Sapt Gandaki, in 

 native topography, from the 7 chief feeders) is the seat of the Sun" 



