1848.] The Turaee aud Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. 361 



the Gagur range, so far as my researches extend ; and though the Cypress 

 is said to exist in Dhyanee Rao, it appears to be in small quantity, 

 limited to a grove or two ; the face of Cheenur towards the lake, on the 

 contrary, bristles with groves and clumps of this dark and stately tree, 

 which recurs, though in diminished numbers, on the Ghiwalee cliffs, as 

 low down as 5100 feet. The vegetation of Cheenur and Nynee Tal 

 thus presents some difficult problems, which the natives resolve at once 

 by the assertion that the Oak, Cypress, Limonia, Colquhounia, &c, 

 were imported from the snowy range and planted here by Devee herself: 

 and one might really suspect that some of the fanatics who did penance 

 on Cheenur in days of yore, actually introduced them from the holy 

 teerths among the snows, were it at all probable that they would have 

 condescended to such humble plants as the Hemiphragma and Anemone. 

 Moreover, on this principle it might be surmised that Pilgrim put the 

 Polygonum amphibium into the lake to make it more English ! 



The view from Cheenur embraces Rohilkhund, Kumaoon, Gurhwal 

 and the Snowy range, from the sources of the Jumna to those of the 

 Kalee. The great Himachul must be about 65 miles distant in a 

 straight line, and its details are therefore less distinct than from Binsur 

 and Almorah, whence the superior limit of forest is perfectly defined — 

 much more so than the snow line — and above which the eye reposes 

 with a never to be satiated curiosity on the enormous shelving masses 

 of rock and snow which appear as if they would squeeze Mother Earth 

 to a mummy. Here we have the Gungootree group running apparent- 

 ly north, with sloping, and apparently stratified planes to the east ; 

 then comes the great Kedarnath mass, said to be the original Soomeroo, 

 whence Siva regards with jealous rivalry his neighbour Vishnoo, who 

 dwells over the way in the still grander mass of Budreenath, or rather 

 on the Nurayun Purbut, the snowy cone above Budreenath Temple, 

 which is perhaps the Naubandhana Peak, to which he is fabled to have 

 moored the ark after the deluge. The base of the great square mass 

 alluded to, was visited in 1847 by Major Sampson, who ascertained 

 that the Vishnoogunga rises there to the west of Mana, from three sepa- 

 rate glaciers, the Sutputee to the S. W. ; the Pabeegurh, West ; and the 

 Soopow, or principal glacier, to the N. W. The last comes down from 

 a range called Punkwadanree, constituted, as shown by the boulder- 

 debris, of normal grey granite, the existence of which in the great crest 



