1848.] Journal of a trip through Kulu and Ldhul, fyc. 201 



Plate XXI :— 



Elevation of a grotesque capital and its ornamental carving and entablature 

 at the angle of the Octagon. The elevation is taken from the interior of the 

 Octagon, as the entablature on the inner side is carved differently from the 

 other portion. 



Plate XXII:— 



Drawing of another grotesque capital. 



Plate XXIII :— 



Carved chafts of both orders of columns in front of the cave. 



Note. — The Editors regret that owing to the sickness of the Pandit upon 

 whose assistance they relied in transcribing the inscriptions which should 

 form the Appendix to the foregoing paper, they are compelled to postpone the 

 publication of these till next month. — Eds. 



Journal of a trip through Kulu and Ldhul, to the Chu Mureri Lake, in 

 Laddk, during the months of August and September 1846. — By 

 Capt. Alexander Cunningham, of Engineers. 



Leaving Simla on the 6th August, we proceeded via Kunihar and 

 Sahiheti to Bilaspur on the Sutlej, which we reached on the following 

 day, and on 



Saturday, 8th August 1846, we crossed the Sutlej in the ferry-boat, 

 which was swept down the stream a considerable distance, the river 

 being then at its greatest height. Some of my baggage was conveyed 

 across on dhres, or inflated buffalo skins. Baron Hugel erroneously 

 calls them o#-skins ; a mist^te which has not been corrected by his 

 translator Major Jerry, who as an old Indian officer should have known 

 better than to transport Hindus upon ox-skins. But the Major has been 

 guilty of a bold piece of pictorial invention in the manufacture of a 

 sketch to illustrate " the method of crossing rivers in the Punjab on 

 inflated skins," where the buffalo skins are represented with horns, 

 ears, and tails, as if the animal were alive, floating with the back out of 

 the water, and the paddler astride across the back. In reality the skin 

 floats upon its back with the legs upwards, and the paddler lies across 

 the skin with his feet on one side — hanging in the water, while he 

 grasps one of the legs in his left hand, and uses a small paddle with 



