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MURREE.
height of about 10,000 feet in the mountains beyond the Murree sanitarium, and stretching onwards into Hazárá, blend at last with the snowy ranges which shut in Kashmir.
Around Murree the scenery is rich and varied. The mountain-sides are clothed with forests of oak and pines, which are, as usual, most dense on their northern slopes; and these, set off by the rich valleys below, and the background of the snowy Kashmir ranges, form a prospect which cannot be equalled in many parts of the lower Himalayas. Farther south the hills change in aspect. They are less lofty and more irregular, but are still adorned by beautiful trees; their shapes become more diversified, the valleys broader, and there is more cultivation. The villages and hamlets are picturesquely placed on the hill-sides in nooks or on projecting spurs; while occasionally the ruins of an old castle recall the bygone splendours of a Ghakkar chief, or a fort the tyranny of the Sikhs. Still farther south, the trees are less lofty, and gradually give place to brushwood; the hills are rounded, and the scenery more tame and uniform. Gradually too, as the hills approach the southern frontier of the District, the length of the ranges grows less and less until, near the borders of Jehlam District, only a narrow line of upland separates the Jehlam river from the plains. The most northern of these parallel ranges within Ráwal Pindi District projects far out into the plains as an isolated ridge a few hundred feet in height. This ridge passes westwards about 10 miles to the north of Ráwal Pindi city, and ends in some stony eminences two miles west of the Margalla pass, and the Grand Trunk Road. At the Margalla pass there is a handsome monument and fountain, erected to the memory of General John Nicholson, killed at the storming of Delhi.
The monument can be seen for miles on either side of the pass; and the fountain, to which water is carried from a perennial spring, is a great boon to travellers. Here the range meets, or slightly overlaps, the extremity of another range of hills, that of the Chitta Pahár, which enters Ráwal Pindi District from the direction of the Indus.
Total area of Murree tahsil, 210 square miles, with 94 towns and villages, 6299 houses, and 7168 families. Population (1881) 39,198, namely, males 22,135, and females 17,063. Classified according to religion, the population consisted of — Muhammadans, 36,620; Hindus, 1987; Sikhs, 175; Christians, 414; and Jains, 2. Of the 94 towns and villages, 72 contained less than five hundred inhabitants, 18 between five hundred and one thousand, while four had a population exceeding one thousand. Of the 210 square miles comprising the tahsil, only 26 square miles, or 12 per cent., are returned as the average area under cultivation for the five years from 1877–78 to 1881-82, the principal crops being-Indian corn 8786 acres, and wheat 4085 acres. Revenue of the tahsil, £769.
