358 The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. [May, 



the upper Rhine, or Switzerland's smallest lake, Zug, which however, 

 is much larger than Nynee Tal. Near the brink, the surface is matted 

 with a tangled mass of Potamogeton mucronatum, Myriopbyllum indi- 

 cum, Chara verticillata, Polygonum scabrinervium, and the pretty Eng- 

 lish Polygonum amphibium, which here, and here only in India, so far 

 as my experience goes, raises its pink spikes above the water. Where 

 free from these, the surface reflects its splendid framework of moun- 

 tain and wood like a mirror. Though only so recently known to Euro- 

 pean civilization, it is said to be described in the Skund Pooran under 

 the appellation Trikhi or Tririkhi, *.' The Three Saints" — to whom 

 must now be added a fourth, a Jewish Saint, " St. John in the wilder- 

 ness," in whose name a very pretty Gothic church has been erected on 

 one of the most picturesque sites in the settlement. A new temple of 

 Devee adorns the exit of the lake, but St. John has put the " Three 

 Saints" to flight, and the mountaineers generally consider the waters as 

 polluted and desecrated by the beef of the butchers, and the skins of 

 the bihishtees, who follow in the train of his votaries. The consequence 

 is a sensible decline, and probable fall of the spring-fair held annually 

 in honor of Devee, the lady of this Indian lake. The modern designa- 

 tion reminds us of the still more celebrated Nynee Devee, the patroness 

 of the Sikhs, overlooking from her mountain shrine the Sodee town of 

 Anundpoor Makhowal, where the Sutluj leaves the Himalaya ; we have 

 Beebee Nanee in the Bolan Pass ; and James Prinsep would have evo- 

 ked many a Nanaia and Anaitis from his coins and historians. Allowing 

 a Persian origin to this form of the goddess, we perhaps have the etymo- 

 logy in nan, bread ; in this instance, unhappily an exemplification of lucus 

 a non lucendo, the bread of Nynee Tal being the worst in the world. 



The lake is separated from the Plains to the S. W. by the rugged 

 mountain of Uyarpata, so named from the predominance of the Andro- 

 meda in its woods, which also abound in admirable specimens of the 

 green oak, Quercus dilatata. This mountain, as well as the low neck of 

 Hanee Banee (Echo) which joins it to the lofty and precipitous peaks 

 of Deoputa to the N. W., is almost exclusively formed of the transition 

 limestone of Musooree, exhibiting everywhere vast rents, caverns, crags, 

 and blocks, and falling so abruptly to the water, that till 1847 nothing 

 beyond an indifferent path-way was attempted " the villainous salt- 

 petre" is now at work on the rocks, and a wide road at the level of the 



