£44 Account of Captain Hodgson’s Journey to the 
only heard its noise. As there must be several more such feeders? 
they will be fully sufficient to form such a stream as we observed 
the Ganges to be at the debouche , in the space of six or seven 
miles. I am fully satisfied, that, if we could have gone further, 
that we should not have again seen the river, and that its ap- 
pearance at Mahadeva's Hair, was the real and first debouche of 
the B'hagiratha. All I regret is, that we could not go to 
the ridge, to see what was beyond it. I suspect there must be 
a descent, but over long and impassable wastes of snow, and not 
in such a direction as would lead direct to any plains, as the 
course to bring one to such plains would be to the N.E. or N., 
whereas the line of the river’s course, or rather of the ridge in 
front, was to the S.E., parallel to the run of the Himalaya, which 
is generally from S.E. to N.W. Immediately in front of the 
ridge no peaks were seen, but on its S.E. flank, and at the dis* 
tanceof about IS miles, a large snowy peak appeared; so that I 
think there can be no plain within a considerable distance of the 
S.E. side of the ridge: if there be streams from its other side, they 
must flow to the S.E. After all, I do not know how we should have 
existed, if we had been able to go to the ridge, for we could not 
have arrived there before night, aud to pass the night on these 
extensive snows, without firewood or shelter, would have cost 
some of us our lives ; but of that we did not then consider much. 
We had only a few trusty men with us, and a short allowance 
of grain for them, for this and the following day, and had sent 
orders to the people left at Gangotri, to make their way back 
towards Keital, leaving us what grain could be spared, and to 
forward on what they might meet, as I expected some from 
Reital, from whence we were supplied during our absence from 
it, of altogether 28 days. I cannot suppose, that by this way 
there can be any practicable or useful pass to the Tartarian 
districts, or doubtless the people would have found it out, and 
used it, as they do that up the course of the Jahnavi .” 
“ No volcanoes were seen or heard of in these mountains, 
whose composition is granite of various kinds and colours. No 
shells or animal remains were seen. The magnetic variation was 
small, and differing little, if at all, from what it is on the plains 
of the Upper Provinces ; it is from 40' to 1 0 and 2°, according 
to different needles, and is easterly, by which I mean, that the 
