1848.] The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. 577 



The descent from the pass is continuous on the north side, and lat- 

 terly very steep, to the Ludheea or Loodheea river, 4 or 5 miles down : 

 it is even now a pretty large and rapid stream, and when the rains fill 

 its wide stony channel becomes unfordable, and closes this route for 

 many days together ; not that in the wet season it is much frequented ; 

 but many fatal accidents cry out for a bridge. Its sources are on the 

 southern face of the Deo Dhoora range, whence, separated from the 

 plains by the Dhyanee Ras and Tula Des mountains, it flows S. E. to 

 join the Kalee above Burm Des, about 4 miles below Belkhet. The 

 road from the foot of the pass turns to the left, up its right bank, and 

 in a mile or so we reach a hut, with some scanty cultivation across the 

 river, which bears the name of Belkhet ; but no supplies are procurable 

 here, or indeed any where between Burm Deo and Chumpawut. The 

 glen is here less than a mile across, and being only 1300 feet above 

 the sea, and walled in by lofty mountains, is exceedingly hot and un- 

 healthy. The pretty Bantam-like jungle fowl is very common, and so 

 tame that I noticed several emerging from the thickets to fraternize 

 with their bulkier but degenerate race of the barn-door. 



The scenery of to-day's route is beyond praise ; and everywhere the 

 mountains and vallies exhibit the most exuberant vegetation ; the 

 " dense forests of exotic plants," noted at p. 25 of the Geology of 

 Kumaoon ; an inexact phrase which is repeated in the map on each side 

 of the Surjoo at Ramesur Bridge: but properly speaking, the plants 

 cannot be said to be exotic, unless removed to the Edinburgh, or some 

 other foreign Botanic Garden. Besides those of Burm Deo and Poona- 

 giri, the beautiful Pothos scandens covers the trunks of large trees on 

 the northern aspect of the pass ; where also, in the damp, half dark 

 glens, the still more beautiful Wallichia Palm occurs in profusion 

 (which, till the fruit was seen, I took for a Fern,) with here and there 

 a specimen of the wild Plantain (Musa,) probably its utmost limit to 

 the N. W. ; but in the glens of the Kalee and Goree rivers, near Askot, 

 it forms whole jungles. On the southern side of the pass, especially 

 about the Toongagar, the Thunbergia (Hexacentris) coccinea, called 

 " Kul-jonka," climbs abundantly over the lower trees. Mr. Batten 

 brought me specimens from the Doorga Peepul pass, a few miles N. W. 

 of this, beyond which it is hitherto unknown : (since met with in the 

 Bunlouree pass.) Towards the summit of the pass, Cissus serrulata 



