Anglo-Indian empire. It lies between the Sewalik or sub-Himálayan range and the Himálaya itself. This former low line of hills, which is composed from the debris of the greater range, has its strata dipping towards the latter in a north-easterly direction, and consists of a few parallel ridges which are high towards the plains, but sloping in the direction of the Himálaya where there is any interval between. It contains an immense collection of the fossil bones of the horse, bear, camel, hyena, ape, rhinoceros, elephant, crocodile, hippopotamus, and also of the sivatherium, the megatherium, and other enormous animals not now found alive. At some places it rests upon the Himálaya, and at others is separated from them by raised valleys. The Dehra Doon is one of those elevated valleys, with the Upper Ganges and Jumna flowing through it on opposite sides, and is about seventy miles in length, and nearly twenty in breadth. It is sometimes spoken of, by enthusiasts for colonisation in India, as if the whole Anglo-Saxon race might find room to establish themselves there; but it is really a very small district, with most of the available land. cultivated; and from Masúri we see the whole of it lying at our feet and bounded by the two shining rivers. It is a very pleasant place, however. Being so far north, just about 30° of latitude, and at an elevation of a little over 2000 feet, it enjoys a beautiful climate. Even in the hot season the nights and mornings are quite cool, which is the great thing in a hot country; the fall of rain is not so great as in the plains below or in the hills immediately above; and in the cold season the temperature is delightful, and at times bracing. I saw roses in the Dehra Doon growing under bamboos and mango-trees, and beds of fine European vegetables side by side with fields of the tea-shrub.

In one plantation which I examined particularly,

the whole process of preparing the tea was shown to me. It was under the superintendence of a Celestial, and the process did not differ much from that followed in China, but the plants were smaller than those usually seen in the Flowery Land. After having been for long a rather unprofitable speculation, the cultivation of tea on the slopes of the Himálaya is now a decided monetary success; and the only difficulty is to meet the demand for Indian tea which exists not only in India and Europe, but also in Central Asia. Dr Jamieson of Sahárunpur, who has interested himself much in the growth of tea in India, and pressed it on when almost everybody despaired of its ever coming to anything, was kind enough to give me a map showing the teadistricts of the Western Himálaya; and I see from it that they begin close to the Nepalese frontier at Pethoragurh in Kumaon. A number of them are to be found from a little below Naini Tal northwards up to Almora and Ranikhet. Besides those in the Dehra Doon, there are some in its neighbourhood immediately below Masúri, and to the east of that hill - station. Next we have those at Kalka on the way to Simla from Ambála (Umballa), at or rather just below Simla itself, at Kotgarh in the valley of the Sutlej, and in the Kúlú valley, so famed for the beauty and immorality of its women. And lastly, there is a group at Dharamsala, and in the Kangra valley and its neighbourhood. The cultivation of tea does not seem to get on in the Himalaya above the height of 6000 feet, and it flourishes from that height down to about 2000 feet, or perhaps lower. Some people are very fond of Indian tea, and declare it to be equal, if not superior, to that of the Middle Kingdom; but I do not agree with them at all. When my supplies ran out in High Asia, tea was for some time my only artificial beverage, though that, too, failed me at last, and I was obliged to have re

course to roasted barley, from which really very fair coffee can be made, and coffee quite as good as the liquid to be had under that name in half the cafés of Europe. It is in such circumstances that one can really test tea, when we are so dependent on it for its refreshing and invigorating effects; and I found that none of the Indian tea which I had with me-not even that of Kangra, which is the best of all-was to be compared for a moment, either in its effects or in the pleasantness of its taste, with the tea of two small packages from Canton, which were given me by a friend just as I was starting from Simla. The latter, as compared with the Himálayan tea, was as sparkling hock to home-brewed ale, and yet it was only a fair specimen of the ordinary better-class teas of the Pearl river.

CHAPTER V.

FIRST VIEWS OF THE HIMÁLAYA.

GOÎTRE-MASÚRI-CLIMATE-INTERIOR ROUTES-VIEW OF SNOWY THE ABODE OF THE GODS-ROAD TO SIMLA-APPEARANCE OF SIMLA-LINES ON THE HIMÁLAYA.

PEAKS

LOOKING from Rajpur at the foot of the hills up to Masúri, that settlement has a very curious appearance. Many of its houses are distinctly visible along the ridges; but they are so very high up, and so immediately above one, as to suggest that we are in for something like the labours and the experience of Jack on the bean-stalk. In the bazaar at Rajpur I was reminded of the Alps by noticing several cases of goitre: and I afterwards saw instances of this disease at Masúri; at Kalka, at the foot of the Simla hills; at Simla; at Nirth, a very hot place near Rampúr in the Sutlej valley; at Lippe, a cool place above 9000 feet high, in Upper Kunáwar, with abundance of good water; at Kaelang in Lahaul, a similar place, but still higher; at the Ringdom Monastery in Zanskar, about 12,000 feet high; in the great open valley of Kashmir; and at Peshawar, in the low-lying trans-Indus plain. These cases do not all fit into any particular theory which has been advanced regarding the cause of this hideous disease; and Dr Bramley has mentioned in the Transactions of the Medical Society of Calcutta, that in Nepal he found goitre was more prevalent on the crests

of high mountains than in the valleys. The steep ride to Masúri up the vast masses of mountain, which formed only the first and comparatively insignificant spurs of the Himalaya, gave a slight foretaste of what is to be experienced among their giant central ranges.

Masúri, though striking enough, is by no means a picturesque place. It wants the magnificent deodar and other trees of the Simla ridge, and, except from the extreme end of the settlement, it has no view of the Snowy Mountains, though it affords a splendid outlook over the Dehra Doon, the Sewaliks, and the Indian plains beyond. The "Himálayan Hotel" there is the best hotel I have met with in India; and there are also a club-house and a good subscription reading-room and library. Not a few of its English inhabitants live there all the year round, in houses many of which are placed in little shelves scooped out of the precipitous sides of the mountain. The ridges on which it rests afford only about five miles of riding-paths in all, and no table-land. Its height is about 7000 feet-almost all the houses being between 6400 and 7200 feet above the level of the But this insures a European climate; for on the southern face of the Himálaya the average yearly temperature of London is found at a height of about 8000 feet. The chief recommendation of Masúri is its equality of temperature, both from summer to winter and from day to night; and in most other respects its disadvantages are rather glaring. In April I found the thermometer in a shaded place in the open air ranged from 60° Fahr. at daybreak to 71° between two and three o'clock in the afternoon; and the rise and fall of the mercury were very gradual and regular indeed, though there was a good deal of rain. The coldest month is January, which has a mean temperature of about 42° 45'; and the hottest is July, which has 67° 35'. The transition to the rainy season appears to make very little difference; but while

sea.