390 The Taraee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. [May, 



East, where the summit, far beyond the reach of running water, is floored 

 withjt ; the Kurra, a torrent rising in the Pass, encrusts every thing 

 with lime to the distance of three miles from the hills, and probably 

 much farther. The rock at Bundurjoora is quarried to a great extent 

 and carried down to the plains on hackeries, each paying a toll of six 

 annas per load, the owner providing his own workmen and tools. The 

 tufYa contains numerous impressions of leaves and twigs ; but the peo- 

 ple affirm that they never come on bones of any kind. 



From the crest of the cliff the view over the silent, illimitable forest, 

 is impressive ; a vast expanse of life, the happy medium, as some one 

 calls it, between the restlessness and misery of thought and its nega- 

 tion in inorganic matter. To one also, long accustomed to the pano- 

 rama of mountains which surrounds Almorah, the contrast of the plains 

 of Rohilkhund, levelled (apparently) like a billiard table, is very strik- 

 ing, and perhaps conveys a higher idea of skill than the other does of 

 power, in so far as the regularity of the one surpasses the wild confusion 

 of the other : one, the result of the action of water, the other probably 

 of fire and steam, the three agents which formed our continents in the 

 first instance, and the last of which is now supposed to be about to 

 regenerate them, as if the man who travels 50 miles per hour, though 

 he be a more wealthy, must necessarily be wiser or better than he who 

 jogs on at the rate of 5, and has time to look in and about him. 



However silent these forests appear, they are by no means untenant- 

 ed : even at the quarries the people are afraid to move a few hundred 

 yards after sun set, on account of the tigers : while the Police stations 

 are the outward and visible signs of the serious depredations which 

 within a few years the bold outlaws of Rohilkhund were wont to com- 

 mit on the settlers and farmers of the wilderness. 



December 20. — To Kaleedhoongee, 10 miles, of which five, to 

 Kumola, are wholly through forest. There is a large clearing, and its 

 usual concomitant, the Goth, at Kumola, watered by cuts from the 

 Kurra, a stream from the Kumola Pass, about 2 miles distant ; a tolera- 

 ble road goes over this to Putulia, in the Kotah Dhoon, opening a 

 hackery route into the sal forest, which here supplies very large timber. 

 The preservation of the Kumaoon Forests, still more difficult than those 

 of the Gurhwal, from their position, as often outside as inside the hill 

 barrier, and therefore exposed to the havoc of innumerable smugglers, 



