^%% ICCOUNT OF A JOURNEY to fSa SoirRCBs' of ths 



rock is too deep and perpendicular to atTord any natural path, and 

 the chief part is therefore artificially conflruded in a manner before 

 alluded to, by placing beams of wood and ftones upon Erong timbers 

 driven into the fiffures of the rock ; thus forming a hanging flight .of 

 iroperfed (leps over the fearful gulf below j and as this fometimes 

 has fuffered from age or weather, and as fometimes the means of at- 

 taching it to the rock were fcanty, or altogether awaiting the means of . 

 palling are as frequently fo infufficient and hazardous, as to fi:rike 

 dread into thofe not much accuftomed to fuch travelling — at times a 

 leap is necelfary to reach the next fure fooiing while the precipice and 

 torrent gapes below; at others, all the fupport that prefents itfeif to 

 fave you from this fall, is a ledge of the rock not three inches broadj 

 with a flight bamboo, hung from fo me root above to take hold of. 

 By this !jnpl?afant path, we reached a fpot on the firft ledge of the 

 mountain where in a thick grove of fir trees^ a fnaall temple is placed • 

 to Bhairamji. It is a plain white building erefted by AwEa Sine 

 T'happa, who gave a fum of money to be laid put on repairs of the 

 road and places of worlhip here and at Gun^otrL Having paid our 

 iefpe6ls to this deity^ we continued our road along the right bank of 

 the river, by a path equally bad as that of one afcent, and Hill gradu- 

 ally afcending among fragments of rock and woodj, which made our 

 progrefs painful and daugerouSc , _ 



Three cos of this defcrjption of path brought us oppofite the de«. 

 bouche of a confidcrable ilream called Miu^Uci'G'hcLdi which tumbles 

 down a deep ravine^ through the opening of which is feen the fnowy 

 range of Midni^ with the cxteniive bofom of fnow that ^ctds the 

 Ilream. Jufl below this, we had a view of a very fingular and lofty 

 peak called Rudru Bimdla Bahm^ a prodigious fpire of bare rock, the 

 top of wbich was enveloped in foow. Juft oppofite to the ilream of 

 Midni^ we obtained bearingSj both upwards and downwards of the 



