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



of the porcupine and wild hog. It is dug up in February all along the 

 foot of the mountains, and sent for sale to the Plains, where it comes 

 into use as a medicine. 



December 16. — To Dhikkolee Pass, (the Dhekuloo of the map,) per- 

 haps 10 miles, W. by N. About half the distance is over high table-land, 

 covered with forest, the rest is along a series of most picturesque glens, 

 the floor and acclivities equally clad in the same dense and beautiful 

 forest. Close on the north rises the westermost prolongation of the 

 Gagur, which terminates at Dhikkolee in this long, wooded, spur. It 

 sends down a multitude of torrents, which, with those of the vallies 

 towards Seetabun, form the Kukrar or Kukuree-nudee, carrying a brisk 

 stream along the usual wide and strong channel, adapted to the Rains 

 supply. It joins the Kosilla at Dhikkolee, where the latter river, 

 though rapid, is now shallow and easily fordable. Nothing can be 

 more exquisite in scenery than its cliff banks and shaggy hills, enliven- 

 ed by flights of birds, which are comparatively wanting in the waterless 

 forests of the plateaus ; or, where present, belong to genera which only 

 make the loneliness more marked by their melancholy notes. Amongst 

 the former the most noisy and remarkable is a large brown-bodied and 

 white-crested thrush Holia or Gelooa, gregarious in flocks of 15 or 20, 

 whose only enjoyment seems to be constant chattering : Cinclosoma 

 leucolophum ? 



Dhikkolee is merely a Chokey in the Pass, 1308 feet above 

 Calcutta : about a mile higher up is the usual encamping ground. 

 On the hill to the west there are the ruins of stone houses, wells, &c. ; 

 perhaps the barracks of the Gorkhalee garrison. It was by this Pass, 

 which ends about six miles down, that our army penetrated into Ku- 

 maoon in 1815 : no opposition was encountered, and the route, which 

 is decidedly the easiest into the province, was perhaps indicated by 

 some of our secret friends at Almorah. 



The sections cut here by the Kosilla exhibit thick and nearly hori- 

 zontal beds of a very stiff, and frequently much indurated red and yel- 

 low clay, which includes the river bed, and underlies thick strata of 

 stones, gravel, and earth, which support the forest. This red clay is 

 said to be the substratum of the vegetable soil of Rohilkhund ; and the 

 formation appears to be identical with that of Upper Assam. At Dhik- 

 kolee, on meeting the clay-beds, the water of the gravel, &c, is forced 



