The new sanitary orders have no doubt done good, but it is difficult to secure compliance with them, though fines are imposed on persons convicted of disobedience. If there had been a reward for informers I could have more than once won it by telling what I had seen.
A very pleasant break during our life at Ranee Khet was a yearly visit paid to Nynee Tal, about thirty miles distant, which had become the seat of Government for the North-West for half the year, and a place of great resort from the plains during the hot and wet months. It has many advantages as a Sanitarium. It is within sixteen miles of the Bhabhur, and has an elevation of from 6,300 to 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. There is a small, beautiful mountain lake, from one end of which one looks down on the plains over the intervening hills; while at the other end, beyond a piece of uneven ground, rises a lofty mountain. There are rather steep hills on either side, but hills with a gradient which admits of houses being built on them. Though so near the plains, this lakelet was till 1842 unknown, except to natives and a few English officials. In that year travellers with difficulty made their way to it, and drew attention to its attractions. We first saw it in 1847, and then it had very few houses. An old General, one of its first residents, told us that one day the preceding year he saw a tiger walking leisurely above his house, and looking down, as if wondering at the change which was coming over the place. Some of the first residents were startled by meeting bears in their walks. Since that time houses have been built on every side, and during the season there is a great population of both Europeans and natives. Four years ago there was a fearful landslip, which carried down a number of houses with it, and buried many under the falling mass.
At the beginning of 1857, the American Episcopal Methodist Church entered on mission work in Rohilkund. When the mutiny of that year broke out, the agents of this church in Rohilkund escaped to Nynee Tal, and from that time they continued to occupy it as a mission station, and also as a sanitarium for their brethren in the plains. The Mission has been efficiently conducted. English services have been maintained during the season. They have been well attended by all classes, and have done much good. Between native servants and shopkeepers from the plains, and natives of the hills, who flock into the place for service and work, there is a large sphere for mission work, and much has been done in the way of both preaching and schools. The Mission has been extended to other parts of the Province, to Gurhwal in the north, to Petorah in the east, and to other places, with manifest tokens of the Divine blessing.