cooler region. At 3500 feet the vegetation again changes, the trees
all become gnarled and scattered; and as the dampness also increases,
more mosses and ferns appear. We emerged from the forest at the foot
of the great ridge of rocky peaks, stretching E. and W. three or four
miles. Abundance of a species of berberry and an _Osbeckia_
marked the change in the vegetation most decidedly, and were frequent
over the whole summit, with coarse grasses, and various bushes.

At noon we reached the saddle of the crest (alt. 4230 feet), where
was a small temple, one of five or six which occupy various
prominences of the ridge. The wind, N.W., was cold, the temp. 56
degrees. The view was beautiful, but the atmosphere too hazy: to the
north were ranges of low wooded hills, and the course of the Barakah
and Adji rivers; to the south lay a flatter country, with lower
ranges, and the Damooda river, its all but waterless bed snowy-white
from the exposed granite blocks with which its course is strewn.
East and west the several sharp ridges of the mountain itself are
seen; the western considerably the highest. Immediately below, the
mountain flanks appear clothed with impenetrable forest, here and
there interrupted by rocky eminences; while to the north the grand
trunk road shoots across the plains, like a white thread, as straight
as an arrow, spanning here and there the beds of the mountain
torrents.

On the south side the vegetation was more luxuriant than on the
north, though, from the heat of the sun, the reverse might have been
expected. This is owing partly to the curve taken by the ridge being
open to the south, and partly to the winds from that quarter being
the moist ones. Accordingly, trees which I had left 3000 feet below
in the north ascent, here ascended to near the summit, such as figs