200 The Kurrukpoor Hills. [No. 3. 



was 147° Fahrenheit. In this temperature nothing appeared to grow or 

 live; at 145°, growing under the water, I found a green slimy moss in 

 full vigour adhering to the hornstone rocks : from 130° to 125° shrubs, 

 trees, grass and ferns grew indiscriminately on the edge of the water, 

 into which they had pushed their roots : at 1 14° I found large shoals 

 of a very small and active silvery fish apparently enjoying their hot 

 life, but upon being driven up the stream into a higher temperature 

 they showed great distress ; at 117° they darted about wildly ; at 

 119° they died instantly ; for at this temperature they turned on their 

 backs, their air-bladders bursting a few seconds afterwards ; at 120° I 

 found the larvae of the Libellula or Dragon fly as active as these slow 

 creeping creatures ever appear to be, apparently enjoying the high 

 temperature previous to undergoing their final metamorphosis. Frogs 

 were swimming about in 1 14° ; and I found a huge black scorpion and 

 numerous frogs dead in 130°. In 120° I saw a large lizard called by 

 the natives " Bahumnee" rush across the stream as if in great agony, 

 he had been scared from the jungle by my servant ; with a desperate 

 struggle he got across the stream which was about ten feet broad and 

 a few inches deep : across numerous hot streams are of course many 

 footpaths used by the cultivators round about Bheembandh, but no 

 where at the point of crossing did I find the water above 120° and 

 even that temperature made the men and women hurry across the 

 stream when fording from bank to bank ; to our European skins the 

 heat of 120° was intolerable, nor could any of the party walk coolly 

 across any of the fords at that temperature without being severely 

 scalded though not blistered. 



Luxuriant crops of rice are raised by the aid of the hot streams, 

 large fields being fed by the water, but at a reduced temperature by 

 leading it in devious courses to the cultivated land. 



The united waters of all these hot springs are conveyed away by the 

 small stream called the Mun, which, after a passage through a narrow 

 and densely wooded and bamboo-fringed valley, flows through Pergun- 

 nah Sukhwabadee to the Ganges, sixteen miles below Monghyr. 



From the hot springs we retraced our steps to the Bheemkoond, a 

 small pool of cold water under an overhanging hornstone rock in the 

 river Mun ; this pool sacred to Bheem, the Hindu Hercules, a place 

 visited by numerous pilgrims and which we were informed by the 



