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



This sandstone, which forms the mountains up to Bheemtal, is exactly 

 the same that we meet with between Bar and Subathoo : it is here 

 beautifully stratified : the strata dip N. E. or from the Plains. A short 

 but rather abrupt descent (the main difficulty in the carriage road to 

 Nynee Tal,) leads from Hath-guleeon into the hot and narrow, but 

 pretty valley of Chouhan ka puta or pata, watered by the Goula, with 

 a hamlet called Hath, and a Goth on the acclivities. A little higher up 

 is the Mango-grove, " Ranee kee Bagh," where the Goula receives the 

 Buliya from Nynee Tal to the N. W. A little below the point of junc- 

 tion, at a holy spot called Maeepoor, or Maiapoor, where a fair is held 

 annually in January, is the Chitr-sila — " the mottled stone," a huge 

 rounded boulder of quartz conglomerate, reposing on a deep cleft in 

 the sandstone, which forms the right bank of the Goula. It is sacred 

 to Devee and Mahadev, and is greatly venerated — no new thing under 

 the sun, as may be seen in the book of Isaiah, c. lvii. The people of 

 Kumaoon always burn their dead at such a " sungum" or confluence. A 

 house, entirely of gold, is believed to exist somewhere here, but invi- 

 sible from enchantment. The Buliya is here crossed by an iron sus- 

 pension bridge, a short ascent from which brings us to the stony and 

 uncultivated dell called Umritpoor, on the Burokhuree or Bheemtal 

 stream, which also joins the Goula close by. From Umritpoor is the 

 way to Kylas mountain. From Kath-godam to this point the Pass is 

 sometimes much infested by tigers, and so many are its intricacies, and 

 such the luxuriance of the forest which overhangs the road, that their 

 destruction is rare and accidental. About 25 persons were devoured or 

 killed here this season ; but so capricious are these brutes in their 

 haunts, that not one casualty seems to have occurred in 1847. The 

 Nynee Tal cluster of mountains is rather lumpy as seen up the Buliya, 

 but the glen itself is most beautiful, the path to Nynee Tal keeping to 

 its south side, deliciously shaded by the forest and the mountains. 



There are several small Goths, where Turmeric, &c. is cultivated : 

 Kushainee, Jeeolee, Dogaree, &c. standing for the most part on elevated 

 gravel plateaux. 



From the upper end of the Umritpoor dell the ascent is nearly conti- 

 nuous to Bheemtal, passing the Pukurbhura stream, and the Suriam 

 and Tooshiara Panees, with springs and wells. In a profound glen to 

 the right, the Burokhuree rattles along its shingly channel, passing 



