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



Close to Huldwanee cross the stony bed of the Goula, about half a 

 mile across : almost all its waters are diverted above this into the nu- 

 merous kools which irrigate the forest cultivation of Kounrpoor and 

 Nougaon Goths, at about the 4th mile on the route. They comprize a 

 large tract of luxuriant wheat and mustard cultivation, the former now 

 in the green ear, the latter ripe. Amongst the corn, I observed grow- 

 ing in abundance the Lathyrus aphaca " Ghora-Kulon," the Lathyrus 

 angulatus, " Ningala-Koshee," (i. e. Hill-Bamboo Legume,) Ervtim 

 hirsutum, "Kooree," and Melilotus leucantha, " Gureela." The hemp 

 plant is also abundant, but apparently less luxuriant than in the Hills. 

 About 2 miles beyond Nougaon is Jam, another Goth, where one of 

 the sheds afforded a welcome refuge from the exceedingly hot sun ; the 

 temperature too, is becoming so high, that the people are already send- 

 ing their wives and children back to the mountains : these are about a 

 mile and a half distant : the Sookhee nudee issues from them, and flows 

 east of Jam, separating the Chhukhata Bhabur from that of Chou- 

 bhynsia. 



None of the people can give any etymology for this word Bhabur : or 

 Bhawur : some have erroneously derived it from the Babur grass (Erio- 

 phorum) which does not grow here, but in the Hills ; and is also differ- 

 ently spelt, as applied by the people of Kumaoon, it denotes the high 

 and dry tract of forest land at the base of the mountains ; Turrai, a 

 word which is scarcely known, is properly the tract of swamp and grass 

 lower down, and may either come from the Persian turee, moisture, 

 water, in opposition to dry land (Shakespeare) or from the Hindee 

 tide, low, below ; by the Gorkhas the whole space is often called Mudh- 

 des, " middle country," between the hills and plains, or rather perhaps, 

 they preserve the favorite Hindoo notion that India is the central 

 country of the world. It is strange enough that Humboldt (Cosmos, 

 note 7,) should confound Madja-desa with the Chinese Mo-kie-thi, 

 which is manifestly Magadha, or South Behar. 



Jam is but a small Goth, and the people are in great fear of the 

 tigers : a man was carried of from a field a week ago : and they assert 

 that a few days since two of these "police of nature" fought, till one of 

 them was left dead on the spot, nor far from this. 



9th March. — To Chorguliya, about 9 miles, called 7 coss : the path 

 stony and bad, generally close under the mountains, through dense for- 



