snowy origin, for it is white, not only with foam, but the water itself
in small quantities is as though it had come out of a milky jug. Grand
hills stand on either side, and up the valley I occasionally got
glimpses of high and rugged snow peaks. Several natives came to me with
different ailments, I gave them rough directions whereby to benefit, but
what they wanted was a gift of medicine (of which I have none.) They
fancy every Englishman is an adept in the art of healing, and that
English physic especially Tyrnhill's Pills, possesses magical powers.


JULY 29th.--To Toomoo, six miles, a shorter march than I intended, for
they told me at Kungan that Toomoo was twelve miles distant. However,
when I arrived, the temptation to stop was too strong to be resisted. In
marching one gets very weary about the sixth or seventh mile, but this
passes off, and you can then go on comfortably for almost any distance,
provided you resist the first feelings of fatigue, and do not give way
to it, as I have done to-day. The mountains are now huge towering
masses, rising thousands of feet above the valley; they have lost all
smoothness of outline, and their upper portions are bare and rough,
cragged, and pine clad. Instead of having merely whitened peaks, snow
fields extend down the sides. The scene is one of wild majestic
grandeur. What tremendous agonies in past ages must have been employed
to produce such vast upheavals. One cannot help contemplating with awe
the possibility of the world again becoming violently rent and shaken
to its foundations by the forces which though now comparatively inert,
still exist beneath us and occasionally give sad proof of their
undiminished power. In the present day the slow but continued action of
this subterranean power is in some parts perceptible (as in South
America) and we have no guarantee that it may not suddenly acquire
increased energy, and overwhelm our fairest lands with a run too