594 The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. [June, 



pony, but afterwards more gentle. The only plants in flower were 

 Saxifraga ciliata, Gentiana marginata, and Primula denticulata, the last 

 high up, in wonderful profusion and perfection. In the upper 1500 or 

 2000 feet, large meadows occur of the tall hairy grass called " Salim," 

 Rhaphis Royleana, common also on the Gagur, Binsur, Bhutkot, &c. ; 

 it is considered the best material in the mountains for thatching, a 

 comparatively thin layer of it, especially if used when fresh cut, being 

 said to exclude water perfectly. My people fired these meadows in 

 several places, when it was surprising to observe the rapidity with 

 which " the tongue of fire" licked up the tall bending culms, and speedi- 

 ly enveloped the mountain side in a mass of flame eating its way 

 down and against the wind as well as up and with it. The amusement 

 was safe up here, but lower down might be fatal ; it is only a few years 

 ago that a party of eight or ten fiddlers (meerasees) on their way to 

 Pithoragurh were overtaken on the high road between Goong and 

 Thokee, and suffocated to a man. In addition to the accidental fric- 

 tion of bamboos, &c. the mountainers believe that these fires are some- 

 times let by the sparks elicited by falling masses of rock, Arundinella 

 hirsutais a very common grass on the S. face of the mountain from 

 6000 to 7000 feet. The ash-leaved Berberry, Berberis, (Mahonia) Ne- 

 palensis " Pande-Kilmora," or " Chotra," is a common shrub on the up- 

 per Thakil : and, in the woods as well as on the open downs, various spe- 

 cies of Cherayuta spring up in abundance, as if nature had here opened 

 a druggist's shop for the cure of the fevers which her agency induces 

 in the Turaee below ; a dualism of operation which reminds us of the 

 experiment recorded by Dr. Braid, who, magnetizing the organ of phi- 

 loprogenitiveness on one, and that of destructiveness on the other side 

 of a young lady's head, was embraced by her with one hand, but 

 knocked down with the other. For an effectual cure of " life's fitful 

 fever" itself, the mighty mother despatches us to the limits of perpetual 

 snow, where she produces her aconite, and sweetens its root as an 

 earthly mother does the medicine for her children ; if, with Macbeth, 

 you " gin to be aweary of the sun," as well you may in India, swallow 

 but a small dose of this, and 



" Nor steel nor poison, 



Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 

 Can touch you farther." 



