92 Abode of Gods
flowers are met within wild plants. Lots of lilies, violets, daisies
and tulips of different varieties, guggal, mamira, mitha-telia,
salam-panja misri and other plants, exhaling exceedingly sweet
scent and lovely Brahma-Kamal (lotus) with its clayx filled with
fine icicles of frost, all these things make these mountains a
pleasure garden of the Lord of earth and heaven."
Tfie foot trek from GaiirikuHd
Travellers have dwelt enthusiastically at length, about the
scene visible, particularly from a point a few miles down the
valley of the Mandakini, the two sharp peaks seem to pierce the
skies, and the white battlements with their enormous slopes of
smooth and shining snow, tower into the air in a wonderful
manner. At the pilgrims feet edging the beds of snow which the
pilgrim has to traverse at intervals, grow a profusion of pale rose
coloured auriculas and yellow prim roses of delicious fragrance.
He passes through primeval oak woods, the gnarled boughs of
which are festooned with long white mass, thick ivy and beauti-
ful festoons of creepers, which here and there are mingled great
walnut, chestunt, maple and hazel trees. As he mounts the steep,
the woods become thin and scanty, but their place is taken by
roses and syringe bushes of powerful scent. So strong is the fra-
grance of flowers near the Rambara and Deo Dekhni when we
near the border of eternal snow, that travellers have sometimes
been completely so overwhelmed by it, and that combined with
the rarity of the air, producing a, feeling of faintness has no
doubt c6ntributed to the belief in the peculiar presence of the
gods in such places, Some travellers in order to counter this
depressing feeling fortify themselves with long quantities of
peppers and cloves to eat. Such belief is further strengthened by
the poet that due to rarified air and distant avalanches and rending
of the ice and snow, but which superstition has fencied to the
voice of the gods, assembled for sport and council.
Holy Dfcam
Suddenly the pilgrim finds himself in the vale of Kedar encir-
cled by high mountains clad in white. The Kedarnath is situated
at 11,735 ft, between Gangotri and Mana Valley where below
Mahapanth peak stands magnificent temple of Lord Kedarnath,