The hot weather and rains of 1866 were spent in Benares. We felt the heat that year more than we had ever previously done, and were to a great extent incapacitated by it for the prosecution of mission work. We came to the conclusion that continued work in the plains was beyond our strength, and as we much wished to continue in the mission field, we hoped a hill sphere might be opened up. In March, 1867, we left for Almora, where, with our colleague Mr. Budden, we engaged in different departments of mission labour. Early in the cold weather we returned to Benares, and resumed our work there. As the hot weather of 1868 came on, we were again privileged to return to Almora. Towards the end of that year it was arranged that our connection with Benares should cease, and that we should begin a new mission at Ranee Khet, about twenty miles north-west from Almora. [Illustration] CHAPTER XX. KUMAON. (1) ITS SCENERY AND PRODUCTS. Kumaon is a sub-Himalayan region, with Nepal to the east, the snowy range, separating it from Tibet, to the north, Gurhwal and Dehra Doon to the west, and Rohilkund to the south. Including the hill country of Gurhwal, and the belt of forest and swamp lying immediately under it, of which only a small part has been reclaimed, Kumaon is about half the size of Scotland. [Sidenote: THE SCENERY OF KUMAON.] The province presents a remarkable contrast to the great level country beneath. Over it you travel in some directions hundreds of miles, and scarcely any elevation or depression in the land can be discerned. As you travel northward, and approach the limit of the plains, you see hills rising before you, tier after tier; and behind them, on a clear day, the higher Himalaya, with their snowy peaks, as if touching the heavens. Kumaon is very mountainous, with as great irregularity as if the land had been fluid, had in the midst of a storm been suddenly solidified, and had then received its permanent shape. Here and there are valleys of some extent, table-lands and open fields are occasionally seen; but over a great part of the province hill is separated from hill by a space so narrow that it can only be called a ravine. The consequence is that cultivation is carried on mainly in terraces. Where the slope is gradual, and the soil fit for cultivation, these terraces, some very narrow and others of considerable width, rise one above the other to the distance of miles, with the hamlets of the cultivators scattered over the hill-side, presenting to the eye of the traveller an aspect of scenery which is not to be seen in Europe, so far as I am aware. At any rate, we saw nothing resembling it on the vine-clad hills rising from the Rhine, or in the mountains of Switzerland.