"I had no idea that height of situation could have so severely affected the strength and chest, and yet it must have been this alone, for severe as was the ascent, and bad as the road was, we had met with fully as bad days' journeys before; and though the people asserted that the air was poisoned by the scent of flowers, and though there really was a profusion of them through the whole of the first part of the march, yet the principal part of them had no smell, nor could I perceive any thing in the air except a cold and somewhat raw wind. Besides which, the chief distress was experienced after we reached the lofty gorge of Bamsooroo. which was beyond the region of vegetation, and consequently could not be easily affected by the perfume of flowers. After reaching that place no one was proof against this influence. It was ludicrous to see those who had laughed at others yielding, some to lassitude, and others to sickness, yet endeavouring to conceal it from the rest. I believe I held out longer than any one; yet after passing this gorge every few paces of ascent seemed an insuperable labour, and even in passing along the most level places my knees trembled under me, and at times even sickness at stomach was experienced. The symptoms it produced were various: some were affected with violent headache; others had severe pains in the chest, with oppression; others sickness at the stomach and vomiting; many were overcome with heaviness, and fell asleep even while walking along. But what proved the fact that all this was the effect of our great elevation, was, that as we lowered our situation, and reached the region of vegetation and wood, all these vio. lent symptoms and pains gradually lessened and vanished. The appearance of the higher cliffs, however, both snowy and rocky, and the sensations of this day, proved most satisfactorily, that it would be a very arduous undertaking, if not an impracticable one, to ascend even nearly to the tops of these loftiest hills. We could not have been within several thousand feet of even those peaks of snow which were tolerably near us." p. 449. Three days' travelling from Jumno tree brought Mr Fraser to the banks of the Bhagiruttee. He found it already a broad stream, nearly of the same magnitude with the Sutlej. His picture of the scenery, and parallel view of that on the streams formerly visited, seems well to deserve being extracted. "From the description given of the nature and appearance of the banks of the Jumna, it may be conceived that nothing wilder or more impracticable could well present itself to the traveller's view than the scenes there witnessed; and I confess that this was my own idea. Nevertheless, it is certain that the character of the mountains that form the banks of the Bhagiruttee, in the quarter we have passed to-day, is not only different from that of any yet seen, but marked by features unspeakably more lofty, rugged, and inaccessible. There is even less of beauty, and more of horror; more to inspire dread, less to captivate. The variety of character to be met with in these mountains, particularly after reaching their more remote and difficult regions, is remarkable; and to a person who has only travelled in the lower parts, and seen the better cultivated and more inhabited tracts of the country, scarcely credible. Perhaps a more complete and better marked example of this cannot be produced in any purely mountainous country, certainly not in that under consideration, than is exhibited in the features we see, marking the beds of the Sutlej, the Pabur, the Jumna, and the Bhagiruttee. "The mountains which form the valley of the Sutlej, particularly on the northwest side, are brown, barren, steep, and rocky; but they have these characters without the grandeur produced by lofty precipices or fringing wood. The nullahs that furrow them are dark uninteresting chasms, and their breasts in general are unenlivened by cultivation; and, though their heights are thickly crowned with forts, there are no neat villages surrounded with trees, on which the eye may turn and rest from the dark desert around. Such are the Cooloo hills, which met our view from below Comharsein, even to beyond Seran. And on the Bischur side, though there may be somewhat more cultivation above, and wood yields its verdure here and there to embellish the valleys, still the lower parts of the hills, for a descent of full three miles, to the narrow, rocky, and arid bed of the river, exhibit little except black rock peeping irregularly through brown burnt grass. "The smiling vale of the Pabur offers a delightful contrast to the black chasm through which the Sutlej rolls. We cannot speak of this river very near its source; but, from a long way beyond the village of Pooroo, which is seven miles above Raeengudh, it flows meandering through a valley of moderate breadth, in which pasture and crops are checkered with its different streams; and on the banks and roots of the hills, rich cultivation, villages, and wood, form a lovely picture, which extends up the stream as far as the eye can distinguish, and till brown hills, topped with snow and rocks, close the prospect. "If any success has attended the perhaps too detailed descriptions of the banks and bed of the Jumna, the reader will already have formed an idea of them: though rocky, precipitous, and wild, they are woody, green, and varied with sloping faces, which are rich with cultivation and verdure. Here and there the river runs through a level though narrow bottom, and many well cultivated and beautiful valleys lead into it: even at its source, though a wilder collection of requisites for a romantic and imposing landscape, as rock, wood, precipice, and snow, could not well be drawn together, they did not form so truly desert and stern a scene as is exhibited in the bed of the Bhagiruttee. "I have said that these mountains are more lofty and bare; in fact, we had now penetrated farther into their higher and more inclement regions; and the Bhagiruttee, a far larger river than the Jumna, has worn a deeper bed, even in the stubborn materials of their bowels. It is not easy to describe the change of scene effected by this change of situation : not only is luxuriant foliage more rare, all rich and lively greens giving way to the dark brown of the fir, which spots the face of the rock, but even that rock is evidently more continually acted on by the seve rity of the storms. Instead of being covered with rich and varied hues, the effect of lichens and the smaller herbage, that usually clothe and variegate even a precipice, the rocks here are white, grey, red, or brown, the colour of their fracture, as if a constant violence was crumbling them to pieces. Their sharp and splintered pinnacles spire up above the general mass: their middle region and feet are scantily sprinkled with the sombre unvarying fir-tree; while the higher parts, retiring from the view, present little more than brown rock, except where a lofty mass of snow overtops them, and calls to our recollection how nearly and completely we are surrounded by it. No green smiling valleys yield their waters to the river: the white and foul torrents which swell its stream pour their troubled tribute through chasms cleft in the solid rock, or are seen tumbling down its face, from the snow that gives them birth. "The whole scene casts a damp on the mind: an indefinite idea of desert solitude and helplessness steals over it: we are, as it were, shut out from the world, and feel our nothingness." pp. 456-458. Here, however, they found a village, where they obtained comfortable repose during the night, and next morning set out for Gungotree. After travelling six cos, they came to a spot called Bhyram Ghauttee, "This is a very singular and terrible place. The course of the river has continued foaming through its narrow rocky bed, and the hills approach their heads, as though they would meet at a prodigious height above. At this point the Bhagiruttee is divided into two branches: that which preserves the name descends from the eastward, and the other, of a size fully equal, called the J,hannevie, joins it from the north-east. Both these rivers run in chasms, the depth, narrowness, and rugged wildness of which it is impossible to describe: between them is thrust a lofty crag, like a wedge, equal in height and savage aspect to those that on either side tower above the torrents. The extreme precipitousness of all these, and the roughness of their faces, with wood which grows near the river side, obstructs the view, and prevents the eye from comprehending the whole at a glance; but still the distant black cliffs, topped with lofty peaks of snow, are discerned, shutting up the view in either of the three ravines, when the clouds for a moment permit them to appear. "Just at the bottom of the deep and dangerous descent, and immediately above the junction of these two torrents, an old and crazy wooden bridge is thrown across the Bhagiruttee, from one rock to the other, many feet above the stream; and it is not till we reach this point that the extraordinary nature of the place, and particularly of the bed of the river, is fully comprehended; and there we see the stream in a state of dirty foam, twisting violently, and with mighty noise, through the curiously hollowed trough of solid granite, cutting it into the strangest shapes, and leaping in fearful waves over every obstacle. From hence the gigantic features of the mountains may frequently be seen, overhanging the deep black glen; their brown splintered crags hardly differing in colour from the blasted pines which start from their fissures and crevices, or even from the dark foliage of those which yet live." pp. 463, 464. The J,hannevie, a stream, the existence of which had not been noticed by any preceding traveller, appears to have already run a pretty long course, having risen from a lofty mountain about fifteen days' journey to the north-east, and within the territories of China. After a most laborious journey along the side of precipices, and over immense heaps of loose stones, they reached Gungotree. "The hills which form between them the bed of the river, and which are exceedingly precipitous and close the whole way from Bhyramghattee, here recede a little, and without losing any thing of their savage grandeur, admit somewhat of a less confined view, and more of the light of day. Below Goureecounda, the river falls over a rock of considerable height in its bed, and continues tumbling over a succession of petty cascades or rapids nearly the whole way to Mianee-ke-Gad,h. A bove the debouche of the Kedar Gunga, the bed widens into a small shingly space, in which the river rapidly rolls, obviously changing its course as the floods direct it. Just at the gorge of this space a bridge has been thrown across, which is formed of two parts, the interior ends of the beams resting on a large rock in the centre; and just above the bridge, in a bay formed by a reach of the river in this shingly space, fifteen feet above the stream, is situated the small temple, or mût, dedicated to the goddess Gunga, or Bhagiruttee." p. 467. "The temple is situated precisely on the sacred stone on which Bhagirutte used to worship Mahadeo, and is a small build ing of a square shape for about twelve feet high, and rounding in, in the usual form of pagodas, to the top. It is quite plain, painted white, with red mouldings, and surmounted with the usual melon-shaped ornaments of these buildings. From the eastern face of the square, which is turned nearly to the sacred source, there is a small projection covered with a stone roof, in which is the entrance facing the east, and just opposite to this there is a small pagoda-shaped temple to Bhyramjee. The whole is surrounded by a wall built of unhewn stone and lime, and the space this contains is paved with flat stones. In this space, too, there is a comfortable but small house for the residence of the Brahmins who come to officiate. Without the inclosure there are two or three sheds constructed of wood, called dhurm sallahs, built for the accommodation of pilgrims who resort here; and there are many caves around formed by overhanging stones which yield a shelter to those who cannot find accommodation in the sheds. "The scene in which this holy place is situated is worthy of the mysterious sanctity attributed to it, and the reverence with which it is regarded. We have not here the confined gloominess of Bhyram Gattee: the actual dread which cannot but be inspired by the precipices, and torrents, and perils of the place, here gives way to a sensation of awe, imposing but not embarrassing, that might be compared to the dark and dangerous pass to the centre of the ruins of a former world; for, most truly, there is little here that recals the recollection of that which we seem to have quitted. The bare and peaked cliffs which shoot to the skies, yield not in ruggedness or elevation to any we have seen; their ruins lie in wild chaotic masses at their feet, and scantier wood imperfectly relieves their nakedness; even the dark pine more rarcly roots itself in the deep chasms which time has worn. Thus on all sides is the prospect closed, except in front to the eastward, where, from behind a mass of bare spires, four huge, lofty, snowy peaks arise; these are the peaks of Roodroo-Himala. There could be no finer finishing, no grander close to such a scene. "We approach it through a labyrinth of enormous shapeless masses of granite, which during ages have fallen from the cliffs above that frown over the very temple, and in all probability will some day themselves descend in ruins and crush it. Around the inclosure, and among these masses, for some distance up the mountain, a few fine old pine trees throw a dark shade, and form a magnificent foreground; while the river runs impetuously in its shingly bed, and the stifled but fearful sound of the stones which it rolls along with it, crushing together, mixes with the roar of its waters." pp. 468, 469. "We were now in the centre of the stupendous Himala, the loftiest and perhaps most rugged range of mountains in the world. We were at the acknowledged source of that noble river, equally an obs ject of veneration and a source of fertility, plenty, and opulence to Hindostan ; and we had now reached the holiest shrine of Hindoo worship which these holy hills contain. These are surely striking consi derations, combining with the solemn grandeur of the place, to move the feelings strongly." p. 469. "This mountain, which is considered to be the loftiest and greatest of the snowy range in this quarter, and probably yields to none in the whole Himalaya, obtains the name of Roodroo Himala, and is held to be the throne or residence of Mahadeo himself. It is also indiscriminately called Pauch Purbut, from its five peaks; and Soomeroo Purbut, which is not to be confounded with the mountain so called near Bunderpouch; and sometimes the gene ral appellation of Kylas is given, which literally signifies any snowy hill, but is plied to this mountain by way of preeminence. It has five paincipal peaks, called Roodroo Himiala, Burrumpooree, Bissenpooree, Oodgurree Kanta, and Soor ap ga Rounee. These form a sort of semicircular hollow of very considerable extent, filled with eternal snow, from the gradual dissolution of the lower parts of which the principal part of the stream is generated; probably there may be smaller hollows beyond the point to the right above Gungotree, which also supply a portion.” pp. 470, 471. The rest of Mr Fraser's narrative concerns merely his return to the lower regions of India. THE BYSTANDER No. VI. IN love or in the gout? I have not been you I've had a serious illness. I have been And a most uncommon effect these restrictions have had; for behold! on this, the first day of my sortie from my chamber, I have burst forth al improvvisto into a strain of poesy, as sublime in sentiment, and not less elevated in diction, than some of the blank verse of the present day; which (I may remark par parenthèse) looks as if good decent prose had become ashamed of its irregular pace, and being suddenly seized, like other worthy bourgeois, with the desire of marching in ranks, had, all at once, quitted its lounging and careless step, and left off flinging its arms and legs about in the old easy way, and then, without even thinking it necessary to dress itself in poetic uniform, had ranged itself in measured lines, mincing its steps, and waddling on, with as self-confident an air as if Pope had drilled it. It does not, by any means, cut so good a figure as our bons citoyens do in a similar situation; the air poëtique is still more wanting in the one, than the air militaire is in the other. from the pure stream of Helicon. Sad, silent, and alone, I counted the "weary moments as they passed," interrupted by no sound save the periodical grunting of Mrs M Naugh ton, who, to be sure, sat up with me: all night, that is to say, bolt upright in an old-fashioned easy chair; the well stuffed back and sides of which induced her mind to take its accustomed repose, notwithstanding the perpendicular position of her body. Still some minutes from one! I anxiously gaze on the watch, marking the slow progress of the index. And what is to happen at that hour? Why, I am to swallow some stuff that Mrs M'Naughton declares would "pushent a horse;" but even this is an incident that breaks the tedium of life. "Mrs M'Naughton? Janet? deaf old fool? won't you get up and give me my medicine?"-"Lordsake! I never heard sic a noise; can ye no let a body sleep. in their bed!-Ou, Sir, I beg your pardon, I forgot whar I wus; I thocht it was Betty deaving me about some thing: it'l be the medycin ye're wanten ?" It is brought; I take a mouthful, but as quickly cause it to regur gitate. "Woman! what are you thinking of? This is laudanum you have given me; I should soon have slept my last long sleep had I swallowed that." "Eh! sirs, is't the lowdenum? did ever ony body see the like o' that! I canna say but Dr has muckle need o' a quarter of Mr M'Kean; sic vritin! it's out o' the poor o' nature to read it." Meditat ing on this narrow escape from death, I again lay my head on the warm and clammy pillow, which no kind hand has shaken for me; and, in a few mis nutes, the nasal tones of my almost murdress come at measured intervals upon my ear. When one lies awake in bed, if he be neither a poet nor a lover, he can do nothing but make moral reflections, and repeat wise saws. "Man," said I, "is and here a thousand similes obtruded themselves. I remember reading an old epitaph in some churchyard, that gives the sense and substance of them all: And now, having_concluded this opening digression, I must account for my non-appearance last month. Reader, hast thou ever had a fever? Thou hast then my apology is made. Art thou an old bachelor? then wilt thou know and pity my sufferings. Art thou a married man? then learn to be thankful for the blessings thou enjoyest. Art thou none of all these? Come, then, listen to the accumulated horrors of a bachelor's sick-room; and let them teach thee to quit thy solitary state before " the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, in which thou shalt say thou hast no pleasure in them.” Night thoughts may be vastly pleasant to a poet, who lies measuring feet, or stringing rhymes together; but they are far otherwise to a poor sick solitary, whose mixtures are not Sapphic and Adonian, nor his draughts Man is a vapour, "Man," continued I, after having repeated the above elegant distich, man is the only animal who knows the right, and chooses the wrong; all others implicitly follow the dictates of instinct; he, in many cases, acts contrary to the suggestions of reason. Sometimes he is led astray by passion; sometimes indolence detains him in the wrong path; sometimes (here conscience pulled the checkstring) procrastination deters him from taking the right one. More than six months have elapsed since I obtruded myself on the notice of the public, with the avowed intention of warning them against the dangers attendant on this last mentioned error, and I have begun by giving an example of the fault I meant to reprobate. I have done with my opportunities as we do with the gifts of for tune, amused myself with the means, and neglected the ends for which they were bestowed. Oh! I could tell them, from bitter experience, that Mr Day's house was not a more bungled piece of workmanship, than is the life of him who lives without plan. I could call them to the bed-side of the old bachelor, and bid them behold what is the end thereof. The end of all this is indeed death; the death of feeling, the death of interest. He who sees growing around him the heirs of his name, his virtues, and perhaps even of his foibles and peculiarities, lives until he draws his last breath; but the solitary individual, unconnected by the tender tie of parent with any of the new inhabitants of the world, is dead long ere he expires; or, at least, wanders alone, a shrivelled relique of the last genera tion." * Whilst I amuse myself with such reflections, old Time hobbles on, seeming to have left off entirely the use of his wings. At length the expiring candle sinks into the socket; and after a few ineffectual struggles to preserve its waning life, it dies; fit emblem of the being it has lighted a little way on his passage to the tomb. The dawn of a new morning sends a feeble light through the shaded window. Man has another day to swell the past, But an August morning is a long morn. *See Edgeworth's Memoirs. ing; and many hours must yet elapse ere it is time to take the meagre breakfast Dr allows me. An hour,' 66 66 says some wise man, may be tedious, but it cannot be long;" very sapient this; and very little to the purpose. Although four hours consist but of two hundred and forty minutes, yet to him who spends those four hours in tracing maps and landscapes in the wavy figures of moreen curtains, an employment which the increasing light renders less and less practicable, each minute seems five. At last nine o'clock comes, and with it ends Mrs M'Naughton's slumbers, who takes usury for the time lent during the night. The long wished-for breakfast, some indescribable slop, is at length brought; but ah! like other earthly pleasures, I find it deceitful; what was anticipated with anxiety, is now rejected with dislike. An immeasurable gulf lies between this and dinner-time; fortunately a few confused and broken slumbers occupy part of the time. I awake, and find myself sole tenant of the apartment. No sound is heard save the ticking of the clock, which seems increased to an unnatural loudness. Hark! the stillness is broken by distant sound of mirth and laughter, proceeding from the servants' hall. The report, like that of a gun in a lone valley, startles the inhabitants of the upper regions. Forth issues Mrs M'Naughton from an adjoining apartment, and perching at the head of the stairs, exerts her stentorian voice. "What an a noise is that ye're makin, ye senseless haverells? Is that a way to gang on, an your maister lyin' deein' here? for it's no my opinion he's ever to get muckle better."-" Mrs maid wishes to speak with you, Mrs M'Naughton." "Aweel, let her come to the stair-fit; I canna be leaving my maister every ring that comes to the door."-" Mrs a pert English tongue, know particularly how Mr Mis?""Gi'e my compliments to your mistress, my woman, and tell her he's no ony better the day, but rather waur, I think."-Comfortable bulle tin for an invalid to overhear! دو says "desires to Dinner-time comes. I feel rather better to-day; and, for the first time, my appetite returns with keenness and vigour but Dr still rigorously prohibits the use of animal food. |