1848.] The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. 387 



mountaineers, the unhealthiness of any particular spot is established ; 

 it is most luxuriant in the Dhikkolee Pass, and generally up to 3500 or 

 4000 feet. But Chilkiya Mundee, in the open grass and Byr jungle, 

 is, in spite of Pilgrim's reclamations, just as deadly as the closest forest, 

 and is equally forsaken as soon as the rains set in. (There is, however, 

 a long belt of forest south of Chilkiya.) The source of the malady is 

 supposed by the people to lie wholly in the bad quality of the river 

 water : and they state that when well water is drank, there is compara- 

 tive impunity. 



Just now the communication between the mountains and the Mundee 

 is brisk and constant : large parties of the mountaineers of Gurhwal 

 constantly passing to and fro. These people prefer fording the river 

 frequently, in the Pass, to the ascent of 400 or 500 feet which the road 

 makes on its left flank : for no consideration will induce a hill man to 

 mount where he can keep to a level, or to make a circuit where he can 

 go direct. So far as I met them, the Gurhwalees appeared a smaller 

 and darker race than the people of Kumaoon : they are abundantly 

 national nevertheless, and sneered at the notion of Kumaoon comparing 

 with Gurhwal in richness of vegetation. The Ramgunga river they 

 invariably term Ruhut or Ruput, a name which we meet far eastward 

 in the Rapty, originally Revutee, from rev to leap, to rave, a very sig- 

 nificant appellation of most of the Himalayan streams. On the higher 

 ranges North of the Mohan valley stands or stood a fort, Kath ke Nao 

 — the wooden boat, an odd name of which I could not discover the 

 cause : it was held by a Gorkha garrison, which fled on the advance of 

 Sir Jasper Nicoll in 1815. The made road is continued in this direc- 

 tion to Budreenath. The Ipomsea quamoclit, I. pes-tigridis, and I. muri- 

 cata, the Argyreia strigosa, Pharbitis Nil, and Coccinia indica, are com- 

 mon plants in the Mohan and Dhikkolee woods : Tabernsemontana 

 coronaria also grows wild here. The Argyreia strigosa abounds in the 

 Bhabur and penetrates the glen of the Surjoo as high as Kupkot : the 

 Pharbitis Nil (Bounra) flourishes up to 5500 feet at Almorah. From 

 one of the clearings, the people brought a young Jurou for sale (Cervus 

 aristotelis ?) only 10 or 12 days old they said, and quite unable to walk, 

 it is now at twelve months old 3 ft. 8 in. high (the horns 3 inches 

 long) and exceedingly strong. It is curious to observe the instinct of 

 excessive caution and vigilance with which nature has endowed it, as 



