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



very large and apparently recent settlement, watered by Kools (parbu- 

 tice gooh) from the Gola river above Huldwanee, which is three miles 

 on : the intervening land is almost all under cultivation, and Huldwanee 

 itself is a very open, and compared with other marts of the Bhabur, a 

 healthy locality. For several years it was the chief entrepot for Ku- 

 maoon, but Kaleedhoongee will prove a formidable rival. It was found- 

 ed by Mr. Traill in 1 834, and has its name from the Huldoo trees 

 (Nauclea cordifolia ;) it consists of a quadrangular enclosure, perhaps 

 80 by 40 yards, the shops facing inwards, but forming a complete anti- 

 thesis to the Royal Exchange ; there is, however, a brisk traffic in cloth, 

 blankets, salt, sugar, grain, groceries, &c. in exchange for the products 

 of the mountains, the natives of which so manage as to arrive here on 

 Tuesdays, when the market (penth) is held. Close on the east is the 

 broad, stony bed of the Gola, Goula, or Gargee, the Kitcha of the 

 Plains, a rapid and considerable river, draining the four mountain lakes, 

 Nynee, Bheem, Noukoochia, and Mulooa Tals. To the N. E. in the 

 second range of mountains, Loolan Putee, Dhyanee rao Pergunna, there 

 is a sacred and very conspicuous cone, called Kylas and Muhadev ka 

 Ling, the form of which is said to come very close to the original ling 

 in Tibet : a fair is held on it in Phalgoon, just before the Holee. The 

 East is not farther from the West, than the state of public feeling which 

 glories in such a phrase as the above, is from our own. The French 

 have an anecdote that in a diplomatic conference between Lord Castle- 

 reagh and Talleyrand, the former, with a terrible solecism in French 

 grammar, remarked, * Perhaps my life may be longer than your Excel- 

 lency's ;' to which the bishop drily replied — " Pent-etre." It was 

 nevertheless, by this standard that the superiority of Siva over Vish- 

 noo was measured, for while the Vaishnavas boast the four great shrines 

 of their lord, Ramisseram, Budureenath, Dwaraka, and Jugunnath, 

 embracing the length and breadth of the land, they cannot deny that 

 Vishnoo upwards, and Brahma downwards, in vain endeavoured to reach 

 the limits of Mahadeo ka ling ! 



In the neighbourhood of the Kylas Cone there is a remarkable scar 

 on the declivity of the Birond Mountain, reported to be 8000 feet high, 

 and lying nearly due south of Almorah. Birond was one of the Great 

 Trigonometrical Stations : but the Map of this district is hitherto un- 

 published. 



