102 Narrative of a Journey to Clio Lagan t fyc. [July, 



try, but an entire change of climate and botany indicates a much 

 higher elevation than Kela, and to my great relief, rice cultivation 

 has disappeared. Hirdu Budha tells me that nothing now remains of 

 the old Fort, if ever there was one, (the Titlakot of the map) on the 

 top of the hill, one or two hundred feet above the village of Titila. 



The people of Chaudans are all Bhotia, carrying on a limited traffic 

 with Pruang via Eastern Byans. 



On the road to-day I met many Dunals, men of Dung, a pati or 

 subdivision of Doti opposite this, bringing salt and borax from Byans. 

 They are not Bhotia, but Khasia, i. e. people of K.ias-des, which in 

 days of yore included all the hill country of which the inhabitants 

 were of mixed caste, and impure to the genuine Hindus of Lower India ; 

 but the Khasias themselves now rather affect to reject the name, and 

 pass it on to the Bhotias, who bear much the same relation to them, 

 that they do to the pure Hindus, the Bhotias being a cross-breed, pro- 

 bably, between the Khasias and the Hunias of Hundes. 



Thermometer at 5^ p. m. 58°, boiled at 198°. Elevation of Titila 

 8000 feet above the sea. The village of Sosa is some 250 feet lower. 

 Rain at night. 



\7th September. — Leave Titila, and after a march of A\ miles by 

 the map, occupying near 6 hours, encamp on the Syankwangarh, 

 now a considerable stream, under the village of Bunbun, at the foot of 

 Rholing-Dhura, the crossing of which constitutes the greater part of 

 this march. The ascent is long but easy, probably three thousand feet 

 in perpendicular elevation, though the summit of the pass may not be 

 more than 2000 feet higher than Titila (owing to some intermediate 

 descent of the road), or 10,000 feet of absolute elevation. The whole 

 hill is clothed with very fine forest, mostly Horse-chestunt trees, with 

 undergrowth of Ningida (Arundinaria falcata?) much resembling that 

 on the Munshari side of Kalamundi,* on the road from Girgaon, (the 

 summit of which is 9200 feet above the sea,) and these two are by far 

 the finest specimens of forest that I have met with in these hills ; the 

 Horse-chestnuts being tall, straight and clean timbers of considerable 

 size. The north side of Rholing-Dhiira is of the same character as the 

 south, with a descent of some three thousand feet to Syankwangarh. 

 My encampment here may be 750 feet lower than Titila, i. e. 7250 

 * A pass and range between the valleys of the Gori and Ramganga. 



