252 Visit to the Hills near the Soobanshiri River. [No. 160. 



Digression up the bed of a small stream called the Doolooni, to see 

 the Raj Ghur. This Doolooni was one of the gold streams ; but last 

 year its bed of shingle was covered with fine sand which the gold-wash- 

 ers can make nothing of, and they have abandoned it. It forms also 

 one of the passes by which the Turbotiah Meris descend, the Dirjoo 

 flowing through Sugal-doobey, which forms the other starting from near 

 the same point in the hills. The Raj Ghur we found about a mile from 

 its mouth. I have seen this Ghur at Goomeri, where it crosses the Booree 

 river, and there it still bears the appearance of having been constructed 

 as a rampart against the inroads of the hill people ; but here it has 

 more the appearance of an old road. It is however a stupendous work, 

 and great is the pity that it is too far north of our population to be 

 used as a line of communication. Previous to the Moran or Muttock 

 wars, the villages of Luckimpore are said to have extended up to this 

 Raj Ghur, and there is every appearance even now of such having been 

 at some period the case. At the mouth of the Doolooni the Sooban- 

 shiri expands with a fine broad, deep and smooth basin, which it enters 

 by three channels formed by two islands, where the stream again meets ; 

 above them it emerges from the hills, and here we halt for the night ; 

 our encamping ground is in the dry bed of the Bergoga. 



January 9th. Our last night's bivouac was not a comfortable one. A 

 stiff breeze blowing down the bed of the Bergoga, was met by another 

 coming down the valley of the Soobanshiri, and they enjoyed themselves 

 together at our expence, blowing the sand into the people's dinners, and 

 the smoke into our eyes, and knocking the canoes against the stones. But 

 we are now fairly amongst the hills, and truly the scenery is sublime. 

 Beneath these hills, the great river winds in graceful serpentines. The 

 basis forming the cliffs are rocky and precipitous to a considerable 

 height, along which foliage of various hues and a most vernal and velvety 

 appearance waves in the breeze. The stream is about 250 yards in 

 breadth, but of a depth (sounded several places on returning and found 

 between sixty and seventy feet in depth throughout this glen) unfathom- 

 able by any means we have at hand. There the rock of storms (the Bo- 

 tahkowa hill) stands boldly out from the mass on a bed of huge boulders 

 screening the mouth of a deep, dark, narrow dell, the winding of which I 

 explored for a little way — a way, where the sun's rays never penetrate ; 

 sometimes huge Bon- trees springing from the rocks above stretch their 



