1847.] Notes of an Excursion to the Piudree Glacier. 259 



descend to the level of 13000 feet : for from the head of the ice to the 

 crest of " Traill's Pass" — the col which may be considered as the root 

 of the glacier, — there is an uninterrupted surface of snow, and that, 

 from its low angle except for the lowest thousand feet, evidently in 

 situ. In short no one in Kumaoon can doubt the existence of per- 

 manent snow, when he contemplates daily the faces of Trisool, Nunda 

 Devee, and others, exposed to the full blaze of the meridian sun, and 

 yet preserving in many spots> and those by no means the highest, 

 spacious fields of snow without a speck or rock. 



None of the culminating pinnacles of the Himalaya are visible from 

 Pindree; though the great Peak, No. 15,22,491 feet, is immediately 

 above on the east — but its northern shoulder, a massive snowy moun- 

 tain, forms a grand object to the north-east, and this, passing the 

 depression forming Traill's Pass, is continued in glorious domes and 

 peaks to the left, where a beautiful pinnacle terminates the view, appa- 

 rently the easternmost of the two lower peaks of Nunda-Devee. The 

 adytum of the Goddess herself is utterly concealed. By many she is 

 irreverently confounded with the Bull of Siva; but H. H. Wilson 

 gives us Nunda and Nundee as epithets of Durga, the inaccessible 

 goddess." The largest temple at Almorah is dedicated to her, and 

 though several hundred years old, is there very generally believed 

 by the credulous mountaineers to have been built and endowed by 

 Mr. Traill, the late Commissioner, in gratitude for his recovery from 

 temporary blindness from the snow glare, when crossing the pass now 

 named from him. An equally lying tradition purports that, like Helio- 

 dorus, he was struck blind at Almorah for forcing his way into her 

 temple, and only restored on endowing it handsomely. These legends, 

 credited against all evidence on the very spot and in the very age where 

 and when they were invented, reduce the value of tradition, and even 

 of contemporary testimony, unless assured of the witness' judgment, 

 considerably below par ! Amongst some great rocks on the east of the 

 moraine, I found numbers of the curious Saussurea obvallata, here called 

 the " Kunwul," or Lotus of Nunda Devee ; near it grew the Dolomiaea 

 macrocephala, another sacred plant, bearing the strange name of " Kala- 

 Tugur " or Black Taberneemontana ; and the common Rhubarb, Rheum 

 Emodi, here called " Doloo." The rocks in situ about the glacier 

 are mica-slate and gneiss, but on the moraine, the fragments consist 



