1848.] The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. 401 



under a small village so called, which tradition has handed down as 

 destined to he overwhelmed one day hy the bursting of Bheemtal. 



The scenery here is wild and beautiful : indeed the Bumouree Pass is 

 glorious in the superb and varied outline of the mountains, and in the 

 exuberant forest which every where clothes them ; frequently bound 

 together into impenetrable thickets by the Acacias, Bauhinias, Robinias, 

 Vines, Ivys, and other lianas which coil their boa-like stems round the 

 trees. This richness of vegetation contrasts remarkably with the thin- 

 ness and even bareness which prevail more or less on the same south 

 aspect from 4500 or 5000 to 7000 feet. Nothing can exceed the force 

 of the wind or the heat of the sun in the Bumouree Pass, and yet its 

 forests are without a break. A phenomenon perhaps to be attributed 

 to the dampness of the climate, which, at all seasons suffices to nourish 

 very numerous orchideous epiphytes, and in the rainy season, when this 

 range is drenched with perpetual showers, a profusion of Balsamina, 

 Didymocarpus, Platystemma, Chirita, and other plants, half vapour, 

 half zephyr, which become rare, or disappear beyond the Gagur. Thus 

 in the Belkhet valley also, lying south of the Kanadeo range, answering 

 to the Gagur, we find the north and south side of the exterior range a 

 mass of luxuriant vegetation, while the north aspect, forming the south- 

 ern flank of the second range, is comparatively denuded, till we approach 

 the summit. Probably twice the quantity of water falls on the outer 

 ranges, which must find its exit in more copious springs along the base 

 of the mountains where the forests are thickest. It may be, also, that 

 the zone of 5000 to 7000 feet, on the south face of the Gagur, and its 

 continuation, is a sort of debateable land, too cold in winter for the pro- 

 ducts of the Turaee, and too warm in summer for those of the moun- 

 tains, which last are found to flourish at the same or much lower level 

 on the opposite and shaded side : where also, from the diminished 

 evaporation, " the scent of water" is more abundant. 



Either from the presence of this universal forest, and its associated 

 fever, or that the mountaineers are attracted by the richer and more 

 easily irrigated lands of the Bhabur, the S. W. border of Kumaoon is 

 very thinly inhabited and scarcely cultivated at all ; while the corre- 

 sponding belt from Sirmour to the Ravee is densely peopled, and every 

 where scarped into terrace-fields of corn, ginger, turmeric, &c. ; the last 

 two being five or six times cheaper than in Kumaoon. 



