Page:Oriental Scenery — One Hundred and Fifty Views of the Architecture, Antiquities, and Landscape Scenery of Hindoostan.djvu/187

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Koah Nullah is a mountain stream that in the season of rain must be a most furious torrent, but in the month of April was a delightful rivulet, that, sparkling in the sun, gave animation and beauty to the rude scenes through which it pursued its uneven course.

The road here (if such it may be called, which, having no trace upon the surface, must be continually hunted for) presents all the difficulties and impediments that can be imagined in such situations. Sometimes blocked up by the violence of periodical floods, it is continued by the trunks of trees thrown from rock to rock, or carried up the steep sides of large fragments of the fallen cliffs, by means of twisted branches, that being fastened to the surface, provide a mode of clambering, which, though practicable, was neither safe nor commodious to travellers encumbered with baggage.

But paths like these, little frequented, where public attention has never been exerted to improve the means of communication, are generally the result of accident, and in the most difficult parts are effected merely by the slight expedients of individuals, whom necessity compels to make their way through such passages.

 

this view also the Koah Nullah makes its appearance: on the banks of which, raised above the reach of casual floods, stands the pleasant village of Jugcanor. It is a small irregular place; the zemindar, or chief landowner of the neighbourhood, like the village squires of other countries, is lodged more sumptuously than his inferiors; his mansion is tolerably built of stone, covered with slates, and consists of two stories, the upper one accommodating the chief and his family, the lower affording shelter to his cattle.

The husbandmen were here employed in reaping their corn, which was an abundant crop of very excellent wheat; a grain preferred by the mountaineers to rice; although their wheat was despised by the rice-eaters of Bengal, who chiefly composed the author's party of attendants, during his mountainous excursion. These low-landers gave also another example of the force of prejudice in their great aversion to the beautiful transparent water every where flowing through the hilly country; their stagnant reservoirs, and even the turbid waters of the Hoogley at Calcutta, appeared to them much more inviting.

 

is a village further advanced into the mountains, about ten miles from Jugcanor, and two or three short of Dusa. Here the mountainous masses are considerably enlarged, and the scenery consequently improves in grandeur. An example, slightly indicated, occurs in this view, of the practice of cultivating the sides of the hills, in successive ledges, so common in China. The figures that are introduced represent the Highland merchants on their way from the plains where they have been bartering the produce of their hills for salt, copper vessels, linen, and other wares, which they convey not in packs, like our pedestrian traders, but in baskets closely fitted and secured to their backs; relieving themselves occasionally from the incumbent weight by the application of a short staff, carried by each traveller for that purpose, to the bottom of the basket, while he takes his standing rest. In this manner these indefatigable creatures, that seen no larger than ants, compared with the stupendous heights they have to traverse, pursue their laborious journey, with a constancy peculiar to the hardy tenants of the hills.

 

stands on the banks of the Koah Nullah, a few miles, it is said, below its source. The forms of the mountains are, from this point, extremely bold, and all around the general effect is majestic. They are richly clothed with wood, and, in many parts, even to their summits; where oak, fir, with many of the forest trees of India, are produced; and the cultivation of grain is carried up their sides to a great height.

In these secluded parts, scarcely affording a single foot of level ground, and where the whole surface, tossed into confusion, offers nothing but the perpetual labour of climbing and descending, there is a considerable degree of population; and pleasant villages are