50 
Letter from the Himmalaya . 
[Fed. 
jemadars of the native infantry. There wore a few ruinous and dirty stone houses, 
but we durst not inhabit them on account of the earthquakes which happened al- 
most every day. I had a portable stove, which there, as elsewhere, was our greatest 
comfort-, however, we were in a safe place, not overhung by any cliffs. We were ge- 
nerally shrouded in cloud and mist, but heard more than we could see. The tre- 
mendous and unceasing crashes, caused by masses of rock, loosened by the rains 
and melting snow, were awful. By day and night this uproar went on, but we got 
used to it; though sometimes, when some great piece of cliff from the steeps across 
the river was precipitated, the. noise was really alarming; and even the apathy of the 
natives was roused, and they ran out to try to see through the thick gloom if the 
end of the world was coming. Occasionally the mist cleared away a little, and we 
could see the vast bounds made by the falling rocks, and the havoc they had caused 
among the pines ; and how much the face of the mountain across the river was al- 
tered! It rose steeply from the stream to the height of several thousand feet. The 
river was about 1000 feet below us, and its roar contributed to the confusmn around. 
We saw, with some alarm, that it rose rapidly, fearing it might take away some of 
the sanghas , when we should have been prisoners, and our grain, (a supply of which 
had been luckily sent from Raital,) was nearly expended, and no one durst go to Raital 
along the bed of the river while the rocks were falling. For ourselves we got a few 
monals (P hasiames Tmpejanus ), but were relieved from our anxiety on the 13th, 
when the rain ceased, and, making a few observations, we set off for Raital, finding 
the sanghas all in good order. Right glad we were to see, at the distance of several 
miles, the old Union waving over it. We were absent from that village 28 days. 
From Raital we returned by B a rah tit to the Rhn and Seharanptir, and then I af- 
terwards joined the reserve "of the grand army, under Sir D. Ochterlony.— This 
letter has now run to such a length, that I must defer giving you an account ofmy 
excursions in other parts of the mountains up the Satlej within the Himmalaya 
in Canaur, of 
my passage over the snowy range, in June 181b, anti journey 
to the source of the Jumna at Jumnotri, in April 1817 ; but L will, in a general 
way, notice, among many other peculiarities of the mountains, some of the most 
remarkable. And first, of the earthquakes, which are much more frequent in their 
occurrence, and more destructive in their effects than in the plains. In one month, 
in 1817, about the same time we experienced so many shocks, forty, I understand, 
were counted in the Camaun mountains, all slight I believe, and not felt in the 
plains, except that of the 21st May, which alarmed us so much at Gangotri, and 
which was smartly felt over the north-west provinces of Hindustan. lou may 
have heard of the earthquake of 1803, which was considered violent in this country, 
and many buildings were damaged over the whole extent, from Bengal to the Penjab, 
but in the mountains its el Feds were terrible, and a great part of the population 
perished ; whole villages having been buried by the fall of clilfs and sliding down of 
the faces of the hills. The scenes of that havoc have often been pointed out tome. 
The imagination can hardly form an idea of a more terrible event than such a 
catastrophe ! \\ hat can be the cause of these more frequent and violent shocks in the 
mountains than in the plains ? We saw no volcanoes, nor heard of any, and I believe 
there are none. 1 li under and lightning are much less frequent in the upper moun- 
tains than in the plains, and I do not recollect any, except once on the way to 
umnoutri, at a place near the bed of the river, and not above 8000 feet above the 
e\e ot the sea. The earthquake at Gangotri was by far the most alarming pheno- 
menon ot nature I ever experienced, and the frequent, almost daily, recurrence of 
ami »»»* 1 «- 1 • -11 JLU dvuiu a JLCVV IcUllIJ" 
thosn - L 1 ' , '] >osslble 5 hut no activity could save the traveller from his fate in 
lav! Vm, n T e amon S the ruins and rubbish of which our path very generally 
of Enron!. vll , ou imv keenly the question is agitated among some philosophers 
know how keenly the question is 
ran ope, whether certain 
caused by the action 
give any opinion on 
knowledge, that I 
appearances on the surface of the earth have been 
of: water , or lire ? For my part, so far from presuming to 
such subjects, I confess that I have so little geologic^ 
Of the various rocks ' o,?' 1 able to describe accurately, or in terms of science, the nature 
Hindustan to the be-Li-t onT S rr 11C l 1 COmpose tlie mountains from the plains rf 
is next to the plains 1 H . 1ULimal aya. But one small range of hills, that which 
fhe Ioav country— cert, ° r mstance > that which divides the Dun valley from 
5?ftft bout 6 “ides ’in depth ^V f ir ’ had been the de P°sition of water. 1* 
500 to 1300 feet. This Dirt .Vi th ° height of its various sharp eminences were from 
U ic uJ ar range extends from the Ganges, at Haridhuara, to th« 
