descend to our encamping ground. This gorge affords to the traveller a very fair specimen of the difficulties for which he has to be prepared; it is very abrupt, nar. row and precipitous, and it looks at first as if it defied your further progress, except by throwing yourself headlong down it. Here too another discouraging prospect opened upon us; the rain commenced falling in torrents, which I could not help looking upon as very ominous of our futurejourney. Before a quarter of an hour had elapsed, I think, we had all enjoyed our first tumble on the slippery ground, and I lamed myself quite enough to keep my recollections of it alive for a week to come. In the evening we reached a small village called Belee, and encamped for the night. On the 24th September we started, with a steep ascent before us, and having surmounted it, we went along the ridge parallel to a river below us, called the Aglar, a tributary of the Jumna, for a few miles; after which we descended to it, and continued up its valley to the village of Bhal.

Before descending to the Aglar river, there is a beautiful view of the mountains on the opposite side of the valley; they are studded with villages, and covered over with cultivation, and the bottom of the valley looks from a distance like a garden. Many of the small villages were perched high upon the mountains; and giving the imagination a little scope, bore the appearance of bee-hives more than any thing else. Rice is extensively cultivated in the valley of the Aglar, and is a very productive crop. The river affords irrigation to any extent with the greatest facility for this, as well as for the wheat crops, which in winter are cultivated largely. The produce is all conveyed to the Landour markets; and I am assured that the extensive sale there for every kind of field crops, has been the cause of a general increase to cultivation, and consequent addition to the comforts of the people for many days journey around.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER IV.

Stumble on Nainee Tal, a beautiful lake.--Beauty of the scenery.-Abundance of game. Surprise at its former obscurity.—Unwilling guides to it.

Having accidentally seen a notice in the Calcutta Englishman, of 31st December, of the discovery of a lake in the vicinity of Almora; and thinking it probable, from some of the particulars mentioned, that the Editor may have been supplied with the information by some one to whom either of our party of three, who visited the interesting spot in November, may have mentioned it in the course of conversation, I take this opportunity of sending you a few lines on the subject, by way of correcting one or two mistakes which have crept into the account given in that paper. You know I intended sending you a full account of it, but unfortunately I am compelled to disappoint you, having lost my original notes on this part of my travels; so you must be satisfied with the following very brief sketch.

The lake is situated on the range of mountains overhanging the plains, called the Gagur, and is distant about 35 miles from Almora. Its height above the level of the sea is 6,200 feet; this I ascertained by repeated trials of the thermometer in boiling water, which shewed temperature of 202° Fahrenheit. It is slightly curved in shape, about 1 to 14 miles in length, and its greatest breadth, I should say, about three quarters of a mile. The measurement, or rather calculation of distances, by the bye, it must be remembered, is highly deceptive in mountain scenery. The water is as clear as crystal; a beautiful little stream, supplied from the springs of the overtopping mountains, is continually running into it, and a smaller one flowing out of it, at the opposite extremity. The depth must be tremendous, as the banks below the water's level shelve down almost perpendicular as far as the eye can reach-in fact, they are a continuation of the precipitous moun→ tain sides around the lake. The outlet is through a narrow gorge

of solid rock, which is so hard and durable as to have resisted, for the ages that have passed since the formation of the lake, the action of the running water which falls over the ledge; and but for such a barrier, this fine sheet of water must long ago have disappeared, and its site become a deep ravine, better understood in the hills by the name of a kud, An undulating lawn, with a great deal of level ground, interspersed with occasional clumps of oak, cypress (not willows), and other beautiful trees, continues from the margin of the lake, for upwards of a mile, up to the base of a magnificent mountain standing at the further extreme of this vast amphitheatre; and the sides of the lake are also bounded by splendid hills and peaks, which are thickly wooded down to the water's edge. In one direction, you see a mountain side adorned with clumps of most stately cypress trees; the height of many of them must be at least a hundred and fifty feet, and all as straight as an arrow. The branches and foliage droop slightly towards the ground, and are so arranged as to make the tree appear a perfect cone. One of a small size which had fallen down, I found to measure a hundred and two feet. On the undulating ground between the highest peak and the margin of the lake, there are capabilities for a race course, cricket ground, &c. &c., and building sites in every direction, sufficient for a large town. Beautiful roads for fiding and driving, might be easily constructed for the entire circumference of the lake; and thousands of pleasure boats might be kept constantly skimming on its surface. It is only one good long day's journey from the plains, which you look down upon from the southern peaks, exactly as you look upon the the Dhoon from Mussooree.

My friend W., of the Engineers, accompanied me to the top of one of the peaks to ascertain this point. The road, or rather path downwards, appears easy, although from every other quarter the approach seems very difficult. The road by which we came up the bed of the Khyrna river, was about as

bad as any I ever saw in the hills; and the other one by which I returned to Almora, via Ramgurh bungalow, still worse. The turaee, below this lake, compared with the Almora one, is safe; and if you take the road by Kota and Chilkeea, into the Moradabad district, it may be passed at all seasons of the year, the same as the Pinjore Dhoon, or the Deyrah Dhoon. Some of the peaks towering over the lake must be upwards of nine thousand feet in height above the sea, and are so magnificent in appearance, that you are ready to imagine yourself in the snowy range. This seemed to be the opinion of the natives as well as ourselves; as we had sent a chupprassy for the purpose of searching out the haunts of the chamois, and he returned to say that they were abundant, but that it would take days and days to find out the ground in such extensive mountains, the like of which he declared he before had never seen beyond the bounds of the snowy range. The forests are intersected in all directions with highways made by countless herds of deer. The jurao (the largest of the red deer tribe), the chamois, and all other animals of their kind, are swarming. The prints of some of the jurao shew them to be perfect monsters in size; and the pheasants appear so common, that, I assure you, we had absolutely to drive them off our encamping ground.

The name of this lake is Nainee Tal; and after what I have said, one naturally asks, why this range of mountains was not originally selected for the erection of a Sanatarium, instead of the bleak hills and rugged precipices of Landour and Mussooree? Abundance of wood, of the finest water, of level ground, and other requisites for building to any extent; capabilities for miles of beautiful roads for riding and driving, so much wanted in every other part of the Himmala; with a magnificent sheet of water both for ornament and for use, where the manly exercise of rowing and sailing might have been indulged in with such advantage to invalids: all these

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are certainly extraordinary recommendations; and yet their existence even appears to have been almost unknown the time of my visit to the lake; no European then residing in Kumaon had seen it, and I have been unable to discover more than three visiters to it, since the province came into our possession. Possibly there may have been one or two more; although the probabilities are much against it, considering the obscurity to which such a wonderful place appears to have been consigned. The natives certainly shewed the greatest reluctance to guide us to the lake, by pleading entire ignorance of its locality; at the same time that we had convincing proof of its being as well known to all the hill men within several days' journey, as the fact of the sun shining at noon day. On reaching the lake, we found that on the level ground a fair was held every year, and evidently one of great resort. In the centre of the market site is erected a very large swing, of most substantial construction, with massive iron chains suspended from it. I could get no information regarding the purpose for which this fair is held, every one of the hill men looked mysterious on any thing connected with Nainee Tal. On my return to Almora, I endeavoured to have some light thrown on the subject, but without much success. My friend Mr. B., of the Civil Service, to whom I am indebted for much that is interesting, and who is more intimately acquainted with the hill people and the hill resources than any one it had previously been my fortune to meet, suggested that lakes in general bore a sacred character among natives, and that he believed Nainee Tal to rank so high, that they were anxious to avoid its pollution by strangers. It struck me and my friend W. that very probably it might be the scene of some rites, or ceremonies, or orgies, which the natives wished to conceal from the knowledge of the local Officers of Government. Another solution of the mystery is, however, feasible, and, added to the suggestion of Mr. B., is likely,

the