Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 1).djvu/30

10 Himalaya is also known as ' Himavata," whence the classical Emodus.

The Kumaon Himalaya.— The Himalaya may be divided longitudinally into three sections, the eastern or Sikkim, the mid or Kumaon, and the north-western or Ladakh. With the first we are not concerned. The Kumaon section lies mainly in the United Provinces, but it includes the sources of the Jamna, and contains the chain in the Pan jab which is at once the southern watershed of the Sutlej and the great divide between the two river systems of Northern India, the Gangetic draining into the Bay of Bengal, and the Indus carrying the enormous discharge of the north-west Himalaya, the Muztagh-Karakoram, and the Hindu Kush ranges into the Indian Ocean. Simla stands on the south-western end of this watershed, and below it the Himalaya drops rapidly to the Siwalik foot-hills and to the plains. Jakko, the deoddr-ca.d hill round which so much of the life of the summer capital of India revolves, attains a height of 8000 feet. The highest peak within a radius of 25 miles of Simla is the Chor, which is over 12,000 feet high, and does not lose its snow cap till May. Hattu, the well-known hill above Narkanda, which is 40 miles from Simla by road, is 1000 feet lower. But further west in Bashahr the higher peaks range from 16,000 to 22,000 feet.

The Inner Himalaya or Zanskar Range.— The division of the Himalaya into the three sections named above is convenient for descriptive purposes. But its chief axis runs through all the sections. East of Nipal it strikes into Tibet not very far from the source of the Tsanpo, is soon pierced by the gorge of the Sutlej, and beyond it forms the southern watershed of the huge Indus valley. In the west this great rampart is known as the Zanskar range. For a short distance it is the