This coloured aquatint was made by Robert Havell and Son from plate 19 of JB Fraser's 'Views in the Himala Mountains'. Now little more than a hamlet, Bhaironghati lies about 10 kilometres from Gangotri. It is set in a thickly forested region near the river Jahnavi, a tributary of the Bhagirathi (the Ganges at its origin).
Arriving here on 19 July 1815, James wrote: "A very singular and terrible place. The course of the river has continued foaming through its narrow rocky bed and the hills approach their heads, as though they could meet at a prodigious height above. At this point the Bhagiruttee is divided into two branches; that which preserves the name descends from the eastward, and the other, of a size fully equal, called the Jhannevie, joins it from the north-east. Both these rivers run in chasms, the depth, narrowness and rugged wildness of which it is impossible to describe."
Source: British Library