Page:Views in India, chiefly among the Himalaya Mountains.djvu/68

40 exercise and the invigorating breeze, enabled us to do full justice to the meal, while we were at no loss for subjects for conversation, the adjacent scenery being sufficient to inspire the most prosaic mind with poetical ideas.

Every body who has visited the hills regrets the absence of those large bodies of water which alone are wanting to fill up the coup-d'œil. Illusion, however, often cheats the eye with the semblance of the element, the valleys being frequently covered with mist, which assumes the appearance of a sea, whence the higher land rises, till at length the snowy range starts up, and bounds the scene. The grandeur of these peaks, and their infinite variety, in the varying light and shade, would seem to leave nothing to wish for, did not the craving nature of man insist upon absolute perfection. Early in the morning, before a single sunbeam has illumined the dark deep twilight of the sky, they rise in solemn majesty, the icy outline being distinctly defined, while they stand out from the grey atmosphere around—anon a tint of amber spreads over them, and, divested of their chilling grandeur, they come out warm and glowing: again they shew like cold bright silver in the sun, while in the evening they are all crimson with the rose that flushes through the sky: a single mile, nay, even a single turn of the road, sufficing to invest them with new shapes and new peculiarities.

From this point, we might be said to traverse a land whose savage aspect was seldom redeemed by scenes of gentle beauty, the ranges of hills crossing, and apparently jostling each other in unparalleled confusion, being all rugged, steep, and difficult to thread, some divided from its neighbours by wide but rough valleys, their summits crowned with forests of venerable growth, while others, more sharp and precipitous, are nothing more than ravines, descending suddenly to a dreadful depth, bare solid rocks several hundred feet in height, or dark with wood, and apparently only formed by the torrents which have worn a passage for themselves through these fearful passes. In such a country, cultivation is difficult, nay, almost impossible; small pieces of ground can alone be reclaimed from the wilderness, and agriculture is carried on with unremitting toil for very inefficient results.

Every step as we recede from the plains becomes more and more fatiguing, while the faint-hearted would look upon an advance as totally impracticable, it being necessary to scramble along over rugged and rocky pathways, climbing at every step, or forcing a passage through the beds of rivers, or trusting to some frail and perilous bridge, which must be crossed before another yard of the journey can be gained.

 VILLAGE OF MOHUNA, NEAR DEOBUN.

Mohuna is built upon a high ridge in the secondary Himalaya, stretching between the Tonse and the Jumna, which at this place is called Deobun, and gives its name to the tract lying to the north-westward of Landour. The ridge itself is characterized by the peculiar beauties of these mountain scenes, and presents a succession of rugged rocks piled grandly upon each other, entwined with lichens and creepers of every kind, and affording at intervals large clefts whence spring the giant wonders of the soil, magnificent trees of immense girth and redundant foliage. We pitched our tents upon one of a series of terraces which, according to the mode of cultivation necessary to be pursued on the steep sides of these mountains, are cut for the purpose of affording a level surface to the husbandman.

The lofty, precipitous, and almost impracticable rocks above, are the favourite haunts of the musk deer, a denizen of these mountains, which is highly prized, and which 