3/0 Journal of a trip through the [April, 



ing a large number of plantains. At sunrise the next morning, after 

 the fall I went to examine how they had fared, I found their fronds 

 covered with frozen snow and drooping under its weight, but in the 

 afternoon when I visited them again I found that they had regained 

 their natural position, and shewed no signs of having suffered from the 

 cold. We had also some severe frosty weather afterwards which 

 affected them but slightly. The severe weather in these hills is gener- 

 ally ushered in by storms of wind and rain. This is accompanied with 

 an abundance of thunder and lightning, with showers of hail, which 

 ultimately descends in flakes of snow. It commences pretty regularly 

 about the end of January in each year. Besides torrents of rain 

 during the wet season, and a sufficiency in January, slight showers fall 

 in each month, which circumstance must be attributed to the proximity 

 of lofty mountains having an elevation of 1G,000 feet. But we must 

 now return from this digression and proceed with the journal. Above 

 the village of Dhurmsala, and at an elevation of 7200 feet above the 

 sea, the Commissioner of Jullundhur has built a house on a spur of the 

 Chumba range, and in the midst of a forest of oaks and rhododen- 

 drons. The view thence is magnificent ; clay-slate and limestone form 

 the middle, whilst saliferous sandstone and marls form the lower, and 

 granite the highest, portions of the Chumba range. 



15. Lug, another place to which sportsmen are fond of resorting, 

 is situated immediately above Killoo, and between 7 and 8000 feet above 

 the sea. It is the name of a hamlet, above which is a level area of one 

 or two acres in extent. Between this and the snowy range is a deep 

 wooded dell in which the menal and argus pheasants abound. But all 

 over the Chumba range game of every description is plentiful ; numbers 

 of fine large mahseer and other fish are found in the deep pools which 

 exist in most of the mountain torrents crossing the valley. These 

 streams are fed entirely by rains and melted snow. The longest mah- 

 seer was caught under the walls of Kangra, and weighed 28 lbs. I be- 

 lieve. There is a large forest of fine Cheels around Killoo and else- 

 where along the base of the snowy range. Killoo is the name of a 

 village with a fort, and is about 10 miles to the north of Chawun. 



16. It is also about 10 miles to the village of Shahpoor, the usual 

 halting place after the first march from Kangra toward Noorpoor. 

 Excepting at the stony beds of nullahs, of which there are several, the 



