226 Notes of an Excursion to the Pindree Glacier. {March, 



Notes of an Excursion to the Pindree Glacier, in September 1846. 

 By Capt. Ed. Madden, Bengal Artillery. 



September 10//*. — From Almorah to Sutralee, 13 or 14 miles, which 

 occupied us (my companion, Captain Hampton, 31st Regt. N. I.) 

 from 6 till 11 a. m. our progress at first being much impeded by a 

 heavy fall of rain, the termination as we hoped, of the season, but 

 which in fact proved to be only a shadow of what was in store for us. 

 The road lies over the mountain called Kaleemuth, 6,300 feet high, 

 and so called, the Almorah people say, from a coarse kind of black lead 

 which abounds there: the summit is of mica slate and gneiss, in 

 horizontal strata. 2,300 feet below, to the west, is Hawulbagh, now 

 famous like Almorah and Bheemtal, for its thriving plantations of 

 tea ; the visiter however, will be disappointed who expects anything 

 picturesque in this cultivation, any more than in the vineyards of 

 France ; the shrubs being generally under four feet high, and any- 

 thing but elegant in form ; the tea is made in spring ; the plant flowers 

 here at that season, and notwithstanding the extreme plucking it under- 

 goes, produces a profusion of seed in October and November. It may 

 be satisfactory to Drs. Royle and Falconer to know that even at Almorah 

 the plantations suffered not the trace of injury from the snow storms of 

 Jan. 26, and Feb. 2. 1847, the heaviest known to the oldest inhabi- 

 tant of Keemaoon, when about 2 feet fell at Almorah, and lay for many 

 days. Hawulbagh takes its name, "The garden of mist," from the 

 heavy clouds which rest over it almost every morning during the cold 

 season, at about 4500 feet elevation ; the Kosilla runs about 200 feet 

 below the station, which has a greater extent of level ground than any 

 other in the N. W. mountains. The river is invariably known to the 

 mountaineers as the Kosee, which H. II . Wilson derives from the San- 

 scrit Kausika, a sheathe, probably in allusion to its generally deep 

 and narrow gten ; the Hindustani name Kosilla, may be from the 

 Sanscrit Kausulya, " good fortune." It has become an axiom in the 

 Geography of the N. W. Himalaya, that the Giree is the only river 

 which does not rise in the snowy range : but the assertion is equally 

 true of the Kosilla, and western Ramgunga of Kumaoon (the latter 

 known also as the Ruput in Gurhwal) ; while the Surjoo and eastern 



