Prati Nidhi alleges, that the route is both circuitous and steep. At any rate, it has been stopt by the present government of Nepal. In the western wing of Tanahung were the capital and Bandi, two places of some consequence. The two maps differ a good deal in the details of this principality; nor do I know to which the preference should be given. The mountains of Tanahung contained mines of iron, but no others. It was said, by Samar Bahadur, that Rising, Ghiring, and Gajarkot, formerly belonged to Tanahung, and were given as an appanage to a younger brother, among whose descendants they were afterwards subdivided, and the three chiefs, to whom they belonged, are universally looked upon to be of the same family; but here a great difficulty occurs. The Tanahung family, as well as the Palpa branch, is very generally admitted to be descended of the Chitaur family, and to be of the highest and purest tribe on the hills, east of the river Kali; but these three petty chiefs wallow in all the ancient abominations of the mountaineers. That Samar Bahadur was mistaken, I see no reason to suppose; especially as these three chiefs were in league with his family, and as Rising seems to have belonged to his ancestor Makunda the 1st, who founded at the Dewghat, in that territory, a celebrated temple, where he died. I shall not take upon myself, however, to say, whether we are, from the circumstance, to infer, that the whole members of this family have no just claim to be descended from the Chitaur colony, but were impure mountaineers, who had this pedigree invented to flatter them, when they turned from their impure ways, and were induced to follow the Brahmans. It is possible, that the first chief of the Rising family, who obtained that country as an appanage, may have been of illegitimate birth, and that, his mother being impure, he may have been brought up in a hankering after the flesh-pots, from which it has been impossible to wean his descendants. Rising, as I have said, was given by a Raja of Tanahung to a younger son. The territory was always petty, and, according to Prati Nidhi, Dewghat seems to have been resumed by Tanahung; but Sadhu Ram alleges, that so long as the principality of Rising continued independent, Dewghat was its port, and enjoyed some trade, which has been stopt by its present rulers. The image of Siva, contained in the temple, is called Makundeswar, from the founder. There is a great assembly of votaries on the Sivaratri, and another on the Khichri. Some of this family are said to remain, but where, I have not heard. The country and its inhabitants do not differ materially from Palpa, but it contains no mines. Ghiring and Gajarkot, which belonged to two collateral branches of Rising, were still more petty than that state, but did not differ in any other considerable respect. SECTION III. NEPAL PROPER.