000 The Turaee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon, [June, 



of the party, who, half drunk, half inspired, and wholly mad from excite- 

 ment, is supposed to acquire the gift of prophecy, the power of reveal- 

 ing the place and agent of stolen goods, the seat, cause, and cure of 

 diseases, &c. Ahree, a mighty hunter, armed with bows and arrows 

 of steel, presides over ordeals, and it is said that an oath taken in his 

 name is held in great reverence. The true name of the peak near 

 Somesur, called Ihooee Deo in the map is Ahree Deo : Raee peak in 

 Gungolee is also sacred to this hero. At the 6th mile from Furka, the 

 road passes a cedar grove and shrine called Patee Jounlaree, with the 

 village and valley of Keemwaree to the south ; the soil is undulating, 

 but apparently poor, consisting of granitic detritus. The streams in 

 this direction from the heads of the Ludheea ; between the two main 

 branches, in the Dhyanee Rao purgunna, are the Nai iron-mines con- 

 sidered the best in Kumaoou ; apparently the " Muglig" of Herbert : 

 the ore is magnetic. At 4 miles from Deo Dhoora, the road descends 

 to a deep col called Gursa Lekh, with the village Goom Gursaree below 

 to the left : hence there is a considerable ascent to Deo Dhoora, 6867 

 feet above Calcutta, a remarkable spot, where on the N. W. face of the 

 mountain, a few feet below its crest, there are two groups of colossal 

 blocks of gray granite, piled on each other in the Titanic style proper 

 to the rock, consecrated to Muhadeva, Devee, Bheemsingh, and soften- 

 ed by a few picturesque cedars, oaks, walnuts, and a large Sillung tree. 

 Similar boulders are strewed over the surface of the surrounding moun- 

 tains, especially on the upper part of the deep depression in the range, 

 immediately north. Between two of the main boulders, in a Druidic 

 recess, is the temple of Muhadev, and the place of sacrifice, where, as 

 at Poonagiri and hundreds of other Indian fanes, innumerable goats and 

 buffaloes are yearly offered, to the confusion of archbishop Magee and 

 his sect. Neither of these rocks is probably much under fifty feet in 

 height. A. little to the west are two other boulders, the uppermost of 

 which called Runsila, about one hundred feet in length is cleft right 

 through the centre by a deep fresh-looking fissure : at right angles to 

 which there is a similar rift in the lower rock. On Runsila rests a 

 smaller boulder, said to be the same that was employed by Bheemsingh 

 to produce these fissures, in proof of which the print of his five fingers 

 is still pointed out, just as at Rephidim the twelve sources whence the 

 water gushed from a similar mass are exhibited to the credulity and the 



