1 234 THE LORDS OF THE HILLS ; —
2 Thovee, which divides the two hills, on the site of the present
3 Jummoo, the places being less than a mile apart. Thus were the
4 seeds of the present great and promising Hill principality
5 sown, and thus those two brothers and their descendants slowly
6 but steadily became Lords of the Hills and of those around them.
7 The 58th in the line of succession of the Jummoo or
8 Jumwall family was the son of Sing-ram Dehu, the elder
9 branch, or that of Kirpal Dehu, being called the Bhow family,
10 of which mention will be made hereafter in its proper place,
11 The sixty-third chief of the family was the great Mai Dehu,
12 who was the eldest of nine sons of Jey Dehu, and lived about
13 the year 1389 of Vikramadita, or, as is mentioned, 749 of the
14 Hejira, and is supposed to have been contemporary with Timor or
15 Timorlung, Timor the Lame. He was the first of the family
16 who had ever in those parts aspired to the title of Rajah. For
17 this purpose he is said to have taken a large stone (of about
18 half a ton weight, and to be seen at the present day) from the
19 bed of the stream that flowed round the hill on which his hum-
20 ble habitation stood, and thence carried this immense weight in
21 his arms, up the steep paths to his home, where at a suitable
22 spot he laid it down. Then collecting thither all his kinsmen
23 and relatives on his side of the Thovee (then supposed to be
24 about 500 in number) he, in the presence of these and of the
25 neighbouring Meghs, was unanimously declared Rajah, by his
26 own brotherhood and the people of all the hill territory, from the
27 Thovee, westward to the Chenaub, an extent of about fourteen
28 or fifteen miles of a wild hill tract, and then very thinly inha-
29 bited. He was now formally installed, and the ceremony was
30 enacted, while he proudly sat on the huge block of stone,
31 which was thenceforward considered a most necessary point in
32 the creation or installation of his successors. It was to the
33 story of his having (by the will and favour of Heaven) carried