Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/304

 at a little distance there is a rough wooden building to shelter travellers. Notwithstanding the great efficacy attributed to this pilgrimage, Gangoutrī is but little frequented. The accomplishment of it is supposed to redeem the performer from many troubles in this world, and ensure a happy transit through all the stages of transmigration he may have to undergo. A trifle is paid to the Brahmān for the privilege of taking the water, which the Hindūs believe is so pure, as neither to evaporate or become corrupted by being kept and transported to distant places. The Ganges enters the plains at Hurdwar, flows on to Prāg, where it is joined by the Jumna; and, after receiving various rivers in its course, it passes through that labyrinth of creeks and rivers called the Sunderbands into the sea.

Captain J. A. Hodgson thus describes Gangoutrī:—

"A most wonderful scene: the B'hàgirat'hí or Ganges issues from under a very low arch at the foot of the grand snow-bed. The river is here bounded to the right and left by high snow and rocks; but in front, over the Debouche, the mass of snow is perfectly perpendicular; and from the bed of the stream to the summit we estimate the thickness at little less than three hundred feet of solid frozen snow, probably the accumulation of ages; it is in layers of some feet thick, each seemingly the remains of a fall of a separate year. From the brow of this curious wall of snow, and immediately above the outlet of the stream, large and hoary icicles depend; they are formed by the freezing of the melted snow-water of the top of the bed, for in the middle of the day the sun is powerful, and the water produced by its action falls over this place in cascade, but is frozen at night. The Gangoutrī Brahmin who came with us, and who is only an illiterate mountaineer, observed, that he thought these icicles must be Mahádéva's hair, whence, as he understood it is written in the sha'stra, the Ganges flows. I cannot think of any place to which they might more aptly give the name of Cow's Mouth than this extraordinary Debouche.

"We were surrounded by gigantic peaks, entirely cased in snow, and almost beyond the regions of animal and vegetable life; and an awful silence prevailed, except when broken by the