right; had it come down the valley which runs at right angles to the
Jhelum just opposite here I should have been blown out. I again noticed
that to which my attention has often been directed, viz.: that when in
or near the storm clouds, the thunder is of quite a different character
to that heard below. It is a continuous low muttering growl without any
claps or peals. I have stood in the storm cloud at Sinchal, 9,000 feet
high, with the lightning originating around me and affording the
sublimest spectacle of dazzling brilliancy, and varying in colour from
the purest white light to delicious rose and blue tints. I have seen it
intensified and focussed as it were within a few feet of me, and from
this centre angled lines and balls of fire like strings of beads
radiated in all directions. Yet the thunder which in the plains was
heard pealing and roaring its loudest, was up there barely audible.


JULY 13th.--From Kunda to Kuthin twelve miles of hard toiling over a
similar road to that of the last march, finishing with a long, steep,
and very rough ascent to the high plateau on which Kuthin stands. On the
top of this I took to my dandy and was carried a mile along the level to
the Barahduree, where I slept upon the charpoy which is provided at
every bungalow for the weary travellers to rest upon pending the arrival
of his baggage. These plateaus or table lands exist at intervals all the
way up the valley, sometimes on one side sometimes on the other and
occasionally on both the river in the middle. They are quite flat, very
small, and highly productive, and vary from fifty to three or four
hundred feet in height, above the river. The valley which widens where
they exist, is narrowed again at either extremity. I can only account
for their formation by supposing that at a former time, a chain of lakes
existed, of which they are the beds, and that the water subsequently
burst through and formed the channel of the present Jhelum, leaving