tains on which Nagkanda stands certainly intercepts a
great deal of moisture during the rainy season, and therefore
makes the valleys on its northern aspect less humid
at that period of the year. This would appear to be
more than counterbalanced by the effect of the dense
forest in keeping up moisture and preventing radiation
during winter, for the cold and dryness of that season
seem to have a much greater effect in determining the
cessation of the forms characteristic of the eastern Himalaya,
than the diminished rain-fall during the three
months of the rainy season.
After crossing the stream at the bottom of the valley,
the road advances in a northerly direction, at first gradually
ascending through fine shady woods, but afterwards,
turning to the right, mounting rapidly by very abrupt
zigzags, up a bare dry hill-side, to the Kotgarh ridge.
Here we took up our quarters for the night, in a house
the property of Captain P. Gerard, a little above the
village of Kotgarh, at an elevation of about 7000 feet, in
a fine grove of Pinus excelsa.
Kotgarh, a large village, and the seat of an establishment
of missionaries, was at one time a military post, and
is interesting to the Himalayan traveller, from the fact
of the detachment here stationed having been long commanded
by one of the brothers Gerard, whose labours in
these mountains, geographical and meteorological, are so
well known. It has, however, long been abandoned as
a military station, the peaceable state of the hill population
rendering it unnecessary to keep a garrison in these
mountains.
Captain Gerard’s house, in which we spent the night,
is elevated several hundred feet above the upper part of
the village of Kotgarh, which occupies the steep face of
the ridge directly overlooking the valley of the Sutlej.
One reach of the river is visible from the front of the
house, and the deep roar of the rapid stream was distinctly
' audible, notwithstanding that we were still
4000 feet above it. On the morning of the 7th of
August we resumed our journey, descending abruptly
through the village of Kotgarh to the Sutlej. At first
the pine-forest which surrounded our night quarters,
accompanied us down the steep hill-side. It was intermixed
with a few scattered deodars; and the shrubby
and herbaceous vegetation was in all its features identical
with that of Simla. Soon, however, the descent was
on a bare hill-side, and after reaching the village, the
road, inclining to the right or east, kept nearly level
for about a mile, passing through much cultivation, in
terraced fields on the slopes. The crops were Kodon
{JElemine Coracana) and a cylindrical-headed Panicum,
both grains commonly cultivated in the plains of India.
There were also many fields .of Amaranthus and Cheno-
podium. The first of these is occasionally cultivated in
all parts of the hills, its bright red inflorescence, in autumn,
tinging with flame the bare mountain slopes.
The Chenopodium was new to me as a cultivated grain,
and is particularly interesting from its analogy with the
Quinoa of South America. It is entirely a rain crop,
and grows very luxuriantly, rising to a height of six or
eight feet, with a perfectly straight stout very succulent
green stem, and large deltoid leaves, either pale green
or of a reddish tinge, and covered with grey mealiness.