1848.] The Taraee and Outer Mountains of Kumaoon. 613 



there are no difficulties beyond the excessive steepness of the acclivity, 

 which, for one pull of 1500 feet is sufficiently great to render the hands 

 almost as useful as the feet. To this succeeds a long, and finally very 

 narrow ridge of rock, and then another, but a shorter steep ascent leads 

 to the summit. The whole mountain is composed of quartz-rock, 

 craggy, but not precipitous on the route, except the defile of the 

 Dhoulee. The summit comprises a level ridge from 200 to 300 yards 

 long, but is not marked by a temple of any kind. To the west it falls 

 rapidly for 2500 feet or so, forming a deep neck, beyond which, bear- 

 ing W. by N. is the Pundooa Khol, the craggy central bluff, perhaps 

 8500 feet high, seen from Almorah between Doonagiri and Bhut Kot. 

 Between the Pundooa Khol and Doonagiri, in a densely wooded recess 

 called Lodh Moona, rises the Gugas, which from the summit of Bhut 

 Kot is seen flowing for many miles due south, to join the Ramgunga, 

 here known as the Ruhut and Ruput. 



Two or three miles N. E. of Bhut Kot, but separated by a precipi- 

 tous rocky neck, is the nearly equally elevated ridge of Boora Pinnath, 

 which contains the sources of the Kosilla, and is consecrated by a tem- 

 ple of Muhadev. Between these lofty points, the mountain sends 

 down a precipitous spur to the S. E. on which is the high bluff called 

 Kourhia, the ramifications of this run down to Lodh. On another 

 point, which lay to our left as we ascended, is the hamlet of Oodeh- 

 poor, with a temple to Goorl Deo, the same who gave name to Goorl- 

 chour, the old cantonment of Chumpawut, and from whom the Limonia 

 laureola is named Goorl-puta. Bhut Kot is well wooded to the summit ; 

 the northern side of the whole range is indeed covered with the densest 

 forest. The ascent commences with Pinus longifolia, then Quercus 

 incana, lanata, dilatata, and for the last 1500 feet Quercus semecarpi- 

 folia in abundance. Rhododendron arboreuin reaches the summit, 

 where we also meet witn the Gaultheria nummularioides, and in the glens 

 to the north, Pyrus lanata and vestita, Cerasus cornuta, Kadsura gran- 

 diflora, Lonicera Govaniana? and another, Symplocos cratsegifolia, 

 Anemone discolor : but the storm prevented any efficient investigation. 

 The Pundooa Khol possesses the Pceonia Emodi ; and there, as on 

 Pinnath, Sutboonga, and Motesur, between 7000 and 8000 feet y in 

 shady localities, is to be seen the Xanthoxylon oxyphyllum of Mr. 

 Edgeworth, which, generally a weak straggling bush, exhibits itself in 



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