Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/448

 to recall the memory of the Hill-man and his terī (wife): saw some beautiful goats in the village, which the people refused to sell, although I bribed them high. Wood and charcoal was cheap and plentiful; nothing else was to be procured. A number of jackals were roaming and howling in the village. The point of Sīkrī-galī-galī on prev. p.] is very picturesque from the river. The indigo factor's bungalow would be an excellent shooting box. It is said the Jharna waterfall and the Himalaya mountains are visible at times from Rajmahāl; I have never seen either. Bears, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, hogs, deer of all kinds, abound here, and feathered game in the Hills. Steamers pass in ten days and a half in the dry season from Calcutta.

Nov. 1st.—Quitted Sikrī-galī early; the river very rapid, nothing but dreary sandbanks, with a distant view of the Hills. Porpoises gambolling in plenty.

2nd.—Fish in abundance for sale on the bank at Kantnagar; a dreary day; anchored on a sandbank,—insects detestable,—the thermometer at ten only 70°.

3rd.—Saw a herd of buffaloes swimming the river—about one hundred head; the men swam with them, each holding on by a buffalo's tail, with his clothes carried high in the air in one hand. Some of the men had bamboos, with which they beat and urged the animals to swim. When I first caught sight of them I took them for a reef of low black rocks, the black heads were so numerous and so mixed together. Late in the evening saw the rocks of Colgong; tracked up the left bank of the river, aided by a good breeze; the force of the stream here is excessive, and it was a great piece of good fortune we had a fair wind to aid us; anchored in darkness about a mile below Kuhulgaon—that is, Colgong.

The "Directory" says, "Fifty-eight miles above Rajmahāl, on the left bank of the river, is the junction of the Koosie river. On the Nepaul part of the Himalaya, nearly opposite, is the Patturgatta Hill, with one or two temples, and is noted in native tradition for a cave (only a small hole), into which, it is said, a Rajah, with an immense suite, and one lakh of torch-bearers, entered, and never returned;—such is the story of the attending