1 10 THE GOLDEN LAKE.
2 sufficiency of firewood, that I was forced, however
3 reluctantly, to abandon the attempt. Before, how-
4 ever, I again descended the hill, I pushed up the
5 stream to the Shisha Nag, about two miles in ad-
6 vance of the spot where we had passed a most
7 miserable night. J found it to be a small lake, about
8 one-third of a mile in diameter, lying chiefly in
9 a punchbowl formed by the nearly perpendicular
10 precipices of a limestone ridge, whose strata up to the
11 summits were as much twisted and distorted as those
12 of the hills about Shahbad, rising from the plain of
13 Kashmir, and with which they were most probably
14 once upon a level, having been formed, to all appear-
15 ance, during the same periods of time.
16 The Sona Nag, or the Golden Lake, is a small
17 one, lying but a short distance over the hills, on the
18 side of the stream opposite to that where we bivou-
19 acked. The incipient Lidur Hows from the Shisha
20 Nag ; and, although I was prevented from seeing
21 Umur Nath, I felt that my fatigue was in some measure
22 repaid by having thus reached that source of the
23 Jylum, which must be considered as inferior only in
24 size and volume to that in the Kosah Nag-, on the
25 opposite Panjal.
26 The last encamping-place of the pilgrims is an
27 elevated plain, distant one day's march from the
28 Shisha Nag ; after which they cross another ridge,
29 and descend to Umur Nath. A vast multitude of men,
30 women, and children advance towards the cave, at an
31 hour appointed by the attendant, the Brahmins first
32 divesting themselves of all clothing, excepting some
33 pieces of birch-bark which do duty for fig-leaves. The
34 cave is of gypsum (I am in possession of specimens