234) Account of Captain Hodgson’s Journey to the 
blocks have indeed fallen, and hang over our heads in threaten- 
ing confusion ; some appear 200 feet in diameter : and here are 
we sitting among these ruins, by the fireside at noon. What 
are these pinnacles of rock, 2000 or 3000 feet high, \yhich are 
above us, like ? I know not. To compare small with great, I 
think the aptest idea I can form of any thing that might be like 
them, would be the appearance that the ruins of a Gothic cathe- 
dral might have to a spectator within them, supposing the thun- 
derbolts or earthquakes had rifted its lofty and massy towers, 
spires, and buttresses ; — the parts left standing might then, in 
miniature, give an idea of the rocks of Bhairog'hati. 
44 The great cedar pines, those gigantic sons of the snow, 
fringe these bare rocks, and fix their roots where there appears 
to be very little soil : a few also of the larger deal pine are seen, 
but inferior trees do not aspire to grow here. The day is dull 
and rainy, and I cast my eyes up at the precipice overhead, not 
without awe ; — a single fragment might dash us to pieces. 
Avalanches of snow and rock, such as we have passed to-day, and 
indeed for these three last days, shew by their effects their vast 
powers of destruction, for they bring down forests in their over- 
whelming course, and dash the cedars into splinters. These 
avalanches have all fallen this season : they have in places filled 
up the dells and water-courses to a great depth with snow, and 
extend from the peaks to the margin of the river. 
44 A painter wishing to represent a scene of the harshest fea- 
tures of nature, should take his station under the Sanga of 
Blmiroghati^ or at the confluence of the Bhagirafhi and Jah- 
?ievi. Here it is proper to take some notice of this latter river, 
hitherto little known. Though the Bhagirafhi is esteemed the 
holy and celebrated Ganges , yet the Jahnevi is accounted to be, 
and I think is, the larger stream. From a Brahmin who offi- 
ciates at Gangotri , and who has been up it, I collected some 
particulars, which, though perhaps far from correct, may serve 
to give an idea of it. By the course of the river is a pass to 
Bhoat or Thibet , by which the people from Reital , and the up- 
per villages of Rowaien , go to get salt, blanket cloth, and woo], 
in exchange for grain. The trade is trifling, and not more than 
a hundred people go yearly. In the latter end of the rains the 
road is opei\. They carry their goods on sheep and goats. 
