The village of Tallum consists of a few wretched stone huts, placed

in a broad part of the valley, which is swampy, and crossed by

several ancient moraines, which descend from the gulleys on the east

flank.* [I have elsewhere noticed that in Sikkim, the ancient

moraines above 9000 feet are almost invariably deposited from valleys

opening to the westward.] The cottages are from four to six feet

high, without windows, and consist of a single apartment, containing

neither table, chair, stool, nor bed; the inmates huddle together

amid smoke, filth, and darkness, and sleep on a plank; and their only

utensils are a bamboo churn, copper, bamboo, and earthenware vessels,

for milk, butter, etc.

Grassy or stony mountains slope upwards, at an angle of 20 degrees,*

[At Lamteng and up the Zemu the slopes are 40 degrees and 50 degrees,

giving a widely different aspect to the valleys.] from these flats to

15,000 feet, but no snow is visible, except on Kinchinjhow and

Chomiomo, about fifteen miles up the valley. Both these are

flat-topped, and dazzlingly white, rising into small peaks, and

precipitous on all sides; they are grand, bold, isolated masses,

quite unlike the ordinary snowy mountains in form, and far more

imposing even than Kinchinjunga, though not above 22,000 feet

in elevation.

Herbaceous plants are much more numerous here than in any other part

of Sikkim; and sitting at my tent-door, I could, without rising from

the ground, gather forty-three plants,* [In England thirty is, on the

average, the equivalent number of plants, which in favourable

localities I have gathered in an equal space. In both cases many are

seedlings of short-lived annuals, and in neither is the number a test

of the luxuriance of the vegetation; it but shows the power which the

different species exert in their struggle to obtain a place.] of

which all but two belonged to English genera. In the rich soil about

the cottages were crops of dock, shepherd's-purse, _Thlaspi arvense,

Cynoglossum_ of two kinds (one used as a pot-herb), balsams, nettle,

_Galeopsis,_ mustard, radish, and turnip. On the neighbouring hills,

which I explored up to 15,000 feet, I found many fine plants,

partaking more or less of the Siberian type, of which _Corydalis,

Leguminosae, Artemisia,_ and _Pedicularis,_ are familiar instances.

I gathered upwards of 200 species, nearly all belonging to north

European genera. Twenty-five were woody shrubs above three feet high,

and six were ferns; [_Cryptogramma crispa, Davallia,_ two _Aspidia,_

and two _Polypodia._ I gathered ten at the same elevation, in the

damper Zemu valley (see chapter xix, note). I gathered in this valley

a new species of the remarkable European genus _Struthiopteris,_

which has not been found elsewhere in the Himalaya.] sedges were in

great profusion, amongst them three of British kinds: seven or eight

were _Orchideae,_ including a fine _Cypripedium._

The entomology of Tallum, like its botany, was Siberian, Arctic types

occurring at lower elevations than in the wetter parts of Sikkim.

Of beetles the honey-feeding ones prevailed, with European forms of

others that inhabit yak-droppings.* [As _Aphodius_ and _Geotrupes._

Predaceous genera were very rare, as _Carabus_ and _Staphylinus,_ so

typical of boreal regions. _Coccinella_ (lady-bird), which swarms at

Dorjiling, does not ascend so high, and a _Clytus_ was the only

longicorn. _Bupretis, Elater,_ and _Blaps_ were found but rarely.

Of butterflies, the _Machaon_ seldom reaches this elevation, but the

painted-lady, _Pontia, Colias, Hipparchia, Argynnis,_ and

_Polyommatus,_ are all found.] Bees were common, both _Bombus_ and

_Andraena,_ but there were no wasps, and but few ants. Grasshoppers

and other _Orthoptera_ were rare, as were _Hemiptera_; _Tipula_ was

the common dipterous insect, with a small sand-fly: there were

neither leeches, mosquitos, ticks, nor midges. Pigeons, red-legged

crows, and hawks were the common birds; with a few waders in

the marshes.

Being now fairly behind most of the great snow and rain-collecting

mountains, I experienced a considerable change in the climate, which

characterises all these rearward lofty valleys, where very little

rain falls, and that chiefly drizzle; but this is so constant that

the weather feels chilly, raw, and comfortless, and I never returned

dry from botanising. The early mornings were bright with views

northwards of blue sky and Kinchinjhow, while to the south the lofty

peak of Tukcham, though much nearer, was seldom seen, and black

cumuli and nimbi rolled up the steep valley of the Lachen to be

dissipated in mist over Tallum. The sun's rays were, however,

powerful at intervals during the forenoon, whence the mean maximum

temperature of July occurred at about 10 a.m. The temperature of the

river was always high, varying with the heat of the day from 47

degrees to 52 degrees; the mean being 50 degrees.

These streams do not partake of the diurnal rise and fall, so

characteristic of the Swiss rivers and those of the western Himalaya,

where a powerful sun melts the glaciers by day, and their

head-streams are frozen by night. Here the clouds alike prevent solar

and nocturnal radiation, the temperature is more uniform, and the

corroding power of the damp southerly wind that blows strongly

throughout the day is the great melting agent. One morning I saw a

vivid and very beautiful halo 20 degrees distant from the sun's disc;

it was no doubt caused by snow in the higher regions of the

atmosphere, as a sharp shower of rain fell immediately afterwards:

these are rare phenomena in mountainous countries.

The Singtam Soubah visited me daily, and we enjoyed long friendly

conversations: he still insisted that the Yangchoo (the name he gave

to the Lachen at this place) was the boundary, and that I must not go

any further. His first question was always "How long do you intend to

remain here? have you not got all the plants and stones you want? you

can see the sun much better with those brasses and glasses* [Alluding

to the sextant, etc.] lower down; it is very cold here, and there is

no food:"--to all which I had but one reply, that I should not return

till I had visited Kongra Lama. He was a portly man, and, I think, at

heart good-natured: I had no difficulty in drawing him on to talk

about Tibet, and the holy city of Teshoo Loombo, with its thousands

of gilt temples, nunneries, and convents, its holiest of all the holy

grand Lamas of Tibet, and all the wide Boodhist world besides. Had it

even been politic, I felt it would be unfair to be angry with a man

who was evidently in a false position between myself and his two

rulers, the Rajah and Dewan; who had a wife and family on the smiling

flanks of Singtam, and who longed to be soaking in the warm rain of

Sikkim, drinking Murwa beer (a luxury unknown amongst these Tibetans)

and gathering in his crops of rice, millet, and buckwheat. Though I

may owe him a grudge for his subsequent violence, I still recall with

pleasure the hours we spent together on the banks of the Lachen.

In all matters respecting the frontier, his lies were circumstantial;

and he further took the trouble of bringing country people to swear

that this was Cheen, and that there was no such place as Kongra Lama.

I had written to ask Dr. Campbell for a definite letter from Tchebu

Lama on this point, but unfortunately my despatches were lost; the

messenger who conveyed them missed his footing in crossing the

Lachen, and escaped narrowly with life, while the turban in which the

letters were placed was carried down the current.

Finally the Soubah tried to persuade my people that one so

incorrigibly obstinate must be mad, and that they had better leave

me. One day, after we had had a long discussion about the geography

of the frontier, he inflamed my curiosity by telling me that

Kinchinjhow was a very holy mountain; more so than its sister-peaks

of Chumulari and Kinchinjunga; and that both the Sikkim and Tibetan

Lamas, and Chinese soldiers, were ready to oppose my approach to it.

This led to my asking him for a sketch of the mountains; he called

for a large sheet of paper, and some charcoal, and wanted to form his

mountains of sand; I however ordered rice to be brought, and though

we had but little, scattered it about wastefully. This had its

effect: he stared at my wealth, for he had all along calculated on

starving me out, and retired, looking perplexed and crestfallen.

Nothing puzzled him so much as my being always occupied with such, to

him, unintelligible pursuits; a Tibetan "cui bono?" was always in his

mouth: "What good will it do _you_?" "Why should you spend weeks on

the coldest, hungriest, windiest, loftiest place on the earth,

without even inhabitants?" Drugs and idle curiosity he believed were

my motives, and possibly a reverence for the religion of Boodh,

Sakya, and Tsongkaba. Latterly he had made up his mind to starve me

out, and was dismayed when he found I could hold out better than

himself, and when I assured him that I should not retrace my steps

until his statements should be verified by a letter from Tchebu; that

I had written to him, and that it would be at least thirty days

before I could receive an answer.

On the 19th of July he proposed to take me to Tungu, at the foot of

Kinchinjhow, and back, upon ponies, provided I would leave my people

and tent, which I refused to do. After this I saw little of him for

several days, and began to fear he was offended, when one morning his

attendant came to me for medicine with a dismal countenance, and in

great alarm: he twisted his fingers together over his stomach to

symbolise the nature of the malady which produced a commotion in his

master's bowels, and which was simply the colic. I was aware that he

had been reduced to feed upon "Tong" (the arum-root) and herbs, and

had always given him half the pigeons I shot, which was almost the

only animal food I had myself. Now I sent him a powerful dose of

medicine; adding a few spoonfuls of China tea and sugar

for friendship.

On the 22nd, being convalescent, he visited me, looking wofully

yellow. After a long pause, during which he tried to ease himself of

some weighty matter, he offered to take me to Tungu with my tent and

people, and, thence to Kongra Lama, if I would promise to stay but

two nights. I asked whether Tungu was in Cheen or Sikkim; he replied

that after great enquiry he had heard that it was really in Sikkim;

"Then," said I, "we will both go to-morrow morning to Tungu, and I

will stay there as long as I please:" he laughed, and gave in with

apparent good grace.

After leaving Tallum, the valley contracts, passing over great

ancient moraines, and again expanding wider than before into broad

grassy flats. The vegetation rapidly diminishes in stature and

abundance, and though the ascent to Tungu is trifling, the change in

species is very great. The _Spiraea,_ maple, _Pieris,_ cherry, and

larch disappear, leaving only willow, juniper, stunted birch, silver

fir, white rose, _Aralia,_ berberry, currant, and more rhododendrons

than all these put together;* [_Cyananthus,_ a little blue flower

allied to _Campanula,_ and one of the most beautiful alpines I know,

covered the turfy ground, with _Orchis, Pedicularis, Gentian,

Potentilla, Geranium,_ purple and yellow _Meconopsis,_ and the

_Artemisia_ of Dorjiling, which ascends to 12,000 feet, and descends

to the plains, having a range of 11,500 feet in elevation. Of ferns,

_Hymenophyllum, Cistopteris,_ and _Cryptogramma crispa_ ascend thus

high.] while mushrooms and other English fungi* [One of great size,

growing in large clumps, is the English _Agaricus comans,_ Fr., and I

found it here at 12,500 feet, as also the beautiful genus

_Crucibulum,_ which is familiar to us in England, growing on rotten

sticks, and resembling a diminutive bird's nest with eggs in it.]

grew amongst the grass.

Illustration--TUNGU VILLAGE.

Tungu occupies a very broad valley, at the junction of the Tungu-choo

from the east, and the Lachen from the north. The hills slope gently

upwards to 16,000 feet, at an average angle of 15 degrees; they are

flat and grassy at the base, and no snow is anywhere to be seen.* [In

the wood-cut the summit of Chomiomo is introduced, as it appears from

a few hundred feet above the point of view.] A stupendous rock, about

fifty feet high, lay in the middle of the valley, broken in two: it

may have been detached from a cliff, or have been transported thither

as part of an ancient moraine which extends from the mouth of the

Tungu-choo valley across that of the Lachen. The appearance and

position of this great block, and of the smaller piece lying beside

it, rather suggest the idea of the whole mass having fallen

perpendicularly from a great height through a crevasse in a glacier,

than of its having been hurled from so considerable a distance as

from the cliffs on the flanks of the valley: it is faithfully

represented in the accompanying woodcut. A few wooden houses were

collected near this rock, and several black tents were scattered

about. I encamped at an elevation of 12,750 feet, and was waited on

by the Lachen Phipun with presents of milk, butter, yak-flesh, and

curds; and we were not long before we drowned old enmity in buttered

and salted tea.

On my arrival I found the villagers in a meadow, all squatted

cross-legged in a circle, smoking their brass and iron pipes,

drinking tea, and listening to a letter from the Rajah, concerning

their treatment of me. Whilst my men were pitching my tent, I

gathered forty plants new to me, all of Tartarian types.* [More

Siberian plants appeared, as _Astragali, Chenopodium, Artemisia,_

some grasses, new kinds of _Pedicularis, Delphinium,_ and some small

Orchids. Three species of _Parnassia_ and six primroses made the turf

gay, mixed with saxifrages, _Androsace_ and _Campanula._ By the

cottages was abundance of shepherd's-purse, _Lepidium,_ and balsams,

with dock, _Galeopsis,_ and _Cuscuta._ Several low dwarf species of

honeysuckle formed stunted bushes like heather; and _Anisodus,_ a

curious plant allied to _Hyoscyamus,_ whose leaves are greedily eaten

by yaks, was very common.] Wheat or barley I was assured had been

cultivated at Tungu when it was possessed by Tibetans, and inhabited

by a frontier guard, but I saw no appearance of any cultivation.

The fact is an important one, as barley requires a mean summer

temperature of 48 degrees to come to maturity. According to my

observations, the mean temperature of Tungu in July is upwards of 50

degrees, and, by calculation, that of the three summer months, June,

July, and August, should be about 46.5 degrees. As, however, I do not

know whether these cerealia were grown as productive crops, much

stress cannot be laid upon the fact of their having been cultivated,

for in a great many parts of Tibet the barley is annually cut green

for fodder.

In the evening the sick came to me: their complaints, as usual, being

rheumatism, ophthalmia, goitres, cuts, bruises, and poisoning by Tong

(_Arum_), fungi, and other deleterious vegetables. At Tallum I

attended an old woman who dressed her ulcers with _Plantago_

(plantain) leaves, a very common Scotch remedy; the ribs being drawn

out from the leaf, which is applied fresh: it is rather a

strong application.

On the following morning I was awakened by the shrill cries of the

Tibetan maidens, calling the yaks to be milked, "Toosh--toosh--

toooosh," in a gradually higher key; to which Toosh seemed supremely

indifferent, till quickened in her movements by a stone or stick,

levelled with unerring aim at her ribs; these animals were changing

their long winter's wool for sleek hair, and the former hung about

them in ragged masses, like tow. Their calves gambolled by their

sides, the drollest of animals, like ass-colts in their antics,

kicking up their short hind-legs, whisking their bushy tails in the

air, rushing up and down the grassy slopes, and climbing like cats to

the top of the rocks.

The Soubah and Phipun came early to take me to Kongra Lama, bringing

ponies, genuine Tartars in bone and breed. Remembering the Dewan's

impracticable saddle at Bhomsong, I stipulated for a horse-cloth or

pad, upon which I had no sooner jumped than the beast threw back his

ears, seated himself on his haunches, and, to my consternation, slid

backwards down a turfy slope, pawing the earth with his fore-feet as

he went, and leaving me on the ground, amid shrieks of laughter from

my Lepchas. My steed being caught, I again mounted, and was being led

forward, when he took to shaking himself like a dog till the pad

slipped under his belly, and I was again unhorsed. Other ponies

displayed equal prejudices against my mode of riding, or having my

weight anywhere but well on their shoulders, being all-powerful in

their fore-quarters; and so I was compelled to adopt the high

demi-pique saddle with short stirrups, which forced me to sit with my

knees up to my nose, and to grip with the calves of my legs and

heels. All the gear was of yak or horse-hair, and the bit was a curb

and ring, or a powerful twisted snaffle..

The path ran N.N.W. for two miles, and then crossed the Lachen above

its junction with the Nunee* [I suspect there is a pass by the Nunee

to the sheds I saw up the Zemu valley on the 2nd of July, as I

observed yaks grazing high up the mountains: the distance cannot be

great, and there is little or no snow to interfere.] from the west:

the stream was rapid, and twelve yards in breadth; its temperature

was 48 degrees. About six miles above Tungu, the Lachen is joined by

the Chomio-choo, a large affluent from Chomiomo mountain. Above this

the Lachen meanders along a broad stony bed; and the path rises over

a great ancient moraine, whose level top is covered with pools, but

both that and its south face are bare, from exposure to the south

wind, which blows with fury through this contracted part of the

valley to the rarified atmosphere of the lofty, open, and dry country

beyond. Its north slope, on the contrary, is covered with small trees

and brushwood, rhododendron, birch, honeysuckle, and mountain-ash.

These are the most northern shrubs in Sikkim, and I regarded them

with deep interest, as being possibly the last of their kind to be

met with in this meridian, for many degrees further north: perhaps

even no similar shrubs occur between this and the Siberian Altai, a

distance of 1,500 miles. The magnificent yellow cowslip (_Primula

Sikkimensis_) gilded the marshes, and _Caltha,_* [This is the

_C. scaposa,_ n. sp. The common _Caltha palustris,_ or "marsh

marigold" of England, which is not found in Sikkim, is very abundant

in the north-west Himalaya.] _Trollius,_ Anemone, _Arenaria, Draba,_

Saxifrages, Potentillas, Ranunculus, and other very alpine

plants abounded.

At the foot of the moraine was a Tibetan camp of broad, black,

yak-hair tents, stretched out with a complicated system of ropes, and

looking at a distance--(to borrow M. Huc's graphic simile)--like

fat-bodied, long-legged spiders! Their general shape is hexagonal,

about twelve feet either way, and they are stretched over six short

posts, and encircled with a low stone wall, except in front. In one

of them I found a buxom girl, the image of good humour, making butter

and curd from yak-milk. The churns were of two kinds; one being an

oblong box of birch-bark, or close bamboo wicker-work, full of

branched rhododendron twigs, in which the cream is shaken: she

good-naturedly showed me the inside, which was frosted with

snow-white butter, and alive with maggots. The other churn was a

goat-skin, which was rolled about, and shaken by the four legs.

The butter is made into great squares, and packed in yak-hair cloths;

the curd is eaten either fresh, or dried and pulverised (when it is

called "Ts'cheuzip").

Except bamboo and copper milk-vessels, wooden ladles, tea-churn, and

pots, these tents contained no furniture but goat-skins and blankets,

to spread on the ground as a bed. The fire was made of sheep and

goats'-droppings, lighted with juniper-wood; above it hung tufts of

yaks'-hair, one for every animal lost during the season,* [The

Siberians hang tufts of horse-hair inside their houses from

superstitious motives (Ermann's "Siberia," i., 281).] by which means

a reckoning is kept. Although this girl had never before seen a

European, she seemed in no way discomposed at my visit, and gave me a

large slice of fresh curd.

Beyond this place (alt. 14,500 feet), the valley runs up north-east,

becoming very stony and desolate, with green patches only by the

watercourses: at this place, however, thick fogs came on, and

obscured all view. At 15,000 feet, I passed a small glacier on the

west side of the valley, the first I had met with that descended

nearly to the river, during the whole course of the Teesta.

Five miles further on we arrived at the tents of the Phipun, whose

wife was prepared to entertain us with Tartar hospitality:

magnificent tawny Tibet mastiffs were baying at the tent-door, and

some yaks and ponies were grazing close by. We mustered twelve in

number, and squatted cross-legged in a circle inside the tent, the

Soubah and myself being placed on a pretty Chinese rug. Salted and

buttered tea was immediately prepared in a tea-pot for us on the mat,

and in a great caldron for the rest of the party; parched rice and

wheat-flour, curd, and roasted maize* [Called "pop-corn" in America,

and prepared by roasting the maize in an iron vessel, when it splits

and turns partly inside out, exposing a snow-white spongy mass of

farina. It looks very handsome, and would make a beautiful dish for

dessert.] were offered us, and we each produced our wooden cup, which

was kept constantly full of scalding tea-soup, which, being made with

fresh butter, was very good. The flour was the favourite food, of

which each person dexterously formed little dough-balls in his cup,

an operation I could not well manage, and only succeeded in making a

nauseous paste, that stuck to my jaws and in my throat. Our hostess'

hospitality was too _exigeant_ for me, but the others seemed as if

they could not drink enough of the scalding tea.

We were suddenly startled from our repast by a noise like loud

thunder, crash following crash, and echoing through the valley.

The Phipun got up, and coolly said, "The rocks are falling, it is

time we were off, it will rain soon." The moist vapours had by this

time so accumulated, as to be condensed in rain on the cliffs of

Chomiomo and Kinchinjhow; which, being loosened, precipitated

avalanches of rocks and snow. We proceeded amidst dense fog, soon

followed by hard rain; the roar of falling rocks on either hand

increasing as these invisible giants spoke to one another in voices

of thunder through the clouds. The effect was indescribably grand:

and as the weather cleared, and I obtained transient peeps of their

precipices of blue ice and black rock towering 5000 feet above me on

either hand, the feeling of awe produced was almost overpowering.

Heavy banks of vapour still veiled the mountains, but the rising mist

exposed a broad stony track, along which the Lachen wandered, split

into innumerable channels, and enclosing little oases of green

vegetation, lighted up by occasional gleams of sunshine. Though all

around was enveloped in gloom, there was in front a high blue arc of

cloudless sky, between the beetling cliffs that formed the stern

portals of the Kongra Lama pass.

CHAPTER XXI.

Top of Kongra Lama -- Tibet frontier -- Elevation -- View --

Vegetation -- Descent to Tungu -- Tungu-choo -- Ponies -- Kinchinjhow

and Changokhang mountains -- Palung plains -- Tibetans -- Dogs --

Dingcbam province of Tibet -- Inhabitants -- Dresses -- Women's

ornaments -- Blackening faces -- Coral -- Tents -- Elevation of

Palung -- Lama -- Shawl-wool goats -- Shearing -- Siberian plants --

Height of glaciers, and perpetual snow -- Geology -- Plants, and wild

animals -- Marmots -- Insects -- Birds -- Choongtam Lama -- Religious

exercises -- Tibetan hospitality -- _Delphinium_ -- Perpetual snow --

Temperature at Tungu -- Return to Tallum Samdong -- To Lamteng --

Houses -- Fall of Barometer -- Cicadas -- Lime deposit -- Landslips

-- Arrival at Choongtam -- Cobra -- Rageu -- Heat of Climate --

Velocity and volume of rivers measured -- Leave for Lachoong valley

-- Keadom -- General features of valley -- Lachoong village -- Tunkra

mountain -- Moraines -- Cultivation -- Lachoong Phipun -- Lama

ceremonies beside a sick-bed.

We reached the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet early in the

afternoon; it is drawn along Kongra Lama, which is a low flat spur

running east from Kinchinjhow towards Chomiomo, at a point where

these mountains are a few miles apart, thus crossing the Lachen

river:* [The upper valley of the Lachen in Tibet, which I ascended in

the following October, is very open, flat, barren, and stony; it is

bounded on the north by rounded spurs from Chomiomo, which are

continued east to Donkia, forming a watershed to the Lachen on the

south, and to the Arun on the north.] it is marked by cairns of

stone, some rudely fashioned into chaits, covered with votive rags on

wands of bamboo. I made the altitude by barometer 15,745 feet above

the sea, and by boiling water, 15,694 feet, the water boiling at

184.1 degrees; the temperature of the air between 2.40 and 4 p.m.

varied from 41.3 degrees to 42.5 degrees, the dew-point 39.8 degrees;

that of the Lachen was 47 degrees, which was remarkably high. We were

bitterly cold; as the previous rain had wetted us through, and a keen

wind was blowing up the valley. The continued mist and fog

intercepted all view, except of the flanks of the great mountains on

either hand, of the rugged snowy ones to the south, and of those

bounding the Lachen to the north. The latter were unsnowed, and

appeared lower than Kongra Lama, the ground apparently sloping away

in that direction; but when I ascended them, three months afterwards,

I found they were 3000 feet higher! a proof how utterly fallacious

are estimates of height, when formed by the eye alone. My informants

called them Peuka-t'hlo; "peu" signifies north in Tibetan, and

"t'hlo" a hill in Lepcha.

Isolated patches of vegetation appeared on the top of the pass, where

I gathered forty kinds of plants, most of them being of a tufted

habit characteristic of an extreme climate; some (as species of

_Caryophylleae_) forming hemi-spherical balls on the naked soil;

others* [The other plants found on the pass were; of smooth hairless

ones, _Ranunculus,_ Fumitory, several species of _Stellaria,

Arenaria, Cruciferae, Parnassia, Morina,_ saxifrages, _Sedum,_

primrose, _Herminium, Polygonum, Campanula, Umbelliferae,_ grasses

and _Carices_: of woolly or hairy once, _Anemone, Artemisia,

Myosotis, Draba, Potentilla,_ and several _Compositae,_ etc.] growing

in matted tufts level with the ground. The greater portion had no

woolly covering; nor did I find any of the cottony species of

_Saussurea,_ which are so common on the wetter mountains to the

southward. Some most delicate-flowered plants even defy the biting

winds of these exposed regions; such are a prickly _Meconopsis_ with

slender flower-stalks and four large blue poppy-like petals, a

_Cyananthus_ with a membranous bell-shaped corolla, and a fritillary.

Other curious plants were a little yellow saxifrage with long runners

(very like the arctic _S. flagellaris,_ of Spitzbergen and Melville

Island), and the strong-scented spikenard (_Nardostachys_).

The rocks were chiefly of reddish quartz, and so was the base of

Chomiomo. Kinchinjhow on the contrary was of gneiss, with granite

veins: the strike of both was north-west, and the dip north-east 20

degrees to 30 degrees.

We made a fire at the top with sheep's droppings, of which the Phipun

had brought up a bagfull, and with it a pair of goat-skin bellows,

which worked by a slit that was opened by the hand in the act of

raising; when inflated, the hole was closed, and the skin pressed

down, thus forcing the air through the bamboo nozzle: this is the

common form of bellows throughout Tibet and the Himalaya.

After two hours I was very stiff and cold, and suffering from

headache and giddiness, owing to the elevation; and having walked

about thirteen miles botanizing, I was glad to ride down. We reached

the Phipun's tents about 6 p.m., and had more tea before proceeding

to Tungu. The night was fortunately fine and calm, with a few stars

and a bright young moon, which, with the glare from the snows,

lighted up the valley, and revealed magnificent glimpses of the

majestic mountains. As the moon sank, and we descended the narrowing

valley, darkness came on, and with a boy to lead my sure-footed pony,

I was at liberty uninterruptedly to reflect on the events of a day,

on which I had attained the object of so many years' ambition.

Now that all obstacles were surmounted, and I was returning laden

with materials for extending the knowledge of a science which had

formed the pursuit of my life, will it be wondered at that I felt

proud, not less for my own sake, than for that of the many friends,

both in India and at home, who were interested in my success?

We arrived at Tungu at 9 p.m., my pony not having stumbled once,

though the path was rugged, and crossed by many rapid streams.

The Soubah's little shaggy steed had carried his portly frame (fully

fifteen stone weight) the whole way out and back, and when he

dismounted, it shook itself, snorted, and seemed quite ready

for supper.

On the following morning I was occupied in noting and arranging my

collections, which consisted of upwards of 200 plants; all gathered

above 14,000 feet elevation.* [Amongst them the most numerous Natural

orders and genera were, _Cruciferae_ 10; _Compositae_ 20;

_Ranunculaceae_ 10; _Alsineae_ 9; _Astragali_ 10; _Potentillae_ 8;

grasses 12; _Carices_ 15; _Pedicularis_ 7; _Boragineae_ 7.] Letters

arrived from Dorjiling with unusual speed, having been only seventeen

days on the road: they were full of valuable suggestions and

encouragement from my friends Hodgson, Campbell, and Tchebu Lama.

On the 26th of July the Phipun, who waited on me every morning with

milk and butter, and whose civility and attentions were now

unremitting, proposed that I should accompany him to an encampment of

Tibetans, at the foot of Kinchinjhow. We mounted ponies, and ascended

the Tunguchoo eastwards: it was a rapid river for the first thousand

feet, flowing in a narrow gorge, between sloping, grassy, and rocky

hills, on which large herds of yaks were feeding, tended by women and

children, whose black tents were scattered about. The yak-calves left

their mothers to run beside our ponies, which became unmanageable,

being almost callous to the bit; and the whole party was sometimes

careering over the slopes, chased by the grunting herds: in other

places, the path was narrow and dangerous, when the sagacious animals

proceeded with the utmost gravity and caution. Rounding one rocky

spur, my pony stumbled, and pitched me forward: fortunately I lighted

on the path.

The rocks were gneiss, with granite veins (strike north-east, dip

south-east): they were covered with _Ephedra,_* [A curious genus of

small shrubs allied to pines, that grows in the south of Europe.

This species is the European _E. vulgaris_; it inhabits the driest

parts of north-west India, and ascends to 17,000 feet in Tibet, but

is not found in the moist intervening countries.] an _Onosma_ which

yields a purple dye, _Orchis,_ and species of _Androsace_; while the

slopes were clothed with the spikenard and purple _Pedicularis,_ and

the moist grounds with yellow cowslip and long grass. A sudden bend

in the valley opened a superb view to the north, of the full front of

Kinchinjhow, extending for four or five miles east and west; its

perpendicular sides studded with the immense icicles, which are said

to have obtained for it the name of "jhow,"--the "bearded" Kinchin.

Eastward a jagged spur stretches south, rising into another splendid

mountain, called Chango-khang (the Eagle's crag), from whose flanks

descend great glaciers, the sources of the Tunguchoo.

We followed the course of an affluent, called the Chachoo, along

whose bed ancient moraines rose in successive ridges: on these I

found several other species of European genera.* [_Delphinium,

Hypecoum, Sagina, Gymnandra, Artemisia, Caltha, Dracocephalum,

Leontopodium._] Over one of these moraines, 500 feet high, the path

ascends to the plains of Palung, an elevated grassy expanse, two

miles long and four broad, extending southward from the base of

Kinchinjhow. Its surface, though very level for so mountainous a

country, is yet varied with open valleys and sloping hills, 500 to

700 feet high: it is bounded on the west by low rounded spurs from

Kinchinjhow, that form the flank of the Lachen valley; while on the

east it is separated from Chango-khang by the Chachoo, which cuts a

deep east and west trench along the base of Kinchinjhow, and then

turns south to the Tunguchoo. The course of the Chachoo, where it

turns south, is most curious: it meanders in sickle-shaped curves

along the marshy bottom of an old lake-bed, with steep shelving

sides, 500 to 600 feet deep, and covered with juniper bushes.*

[These, which grow on an eastern exposure, exist at a higher

elevation than any other bushes I have met with.] It is fed by the

glaciers of Kinchinjhow, and some little lakes to the east.

The mean height of Palung plains is 16,000 feet: they are covered

with transported blocks, and I have no doubt their surface has been

much modified by glacial action. I was forcibly reminded of them by

the slopes of the Wengern Alp, but those of Palung are far more

level. Kinchinjhow rises before the spectator, just as the Jungfrau,

Monch, and Eigher Alps do from that magnificent point of view.

On ascending a low hill, we came in sight of the Tibet camp at the

distance of a mile, when the great mastiffs that guarded it

immediately bayed; and our ponies starting off at full gallop, we

soon reached an enclosure of stone dykes, within which the black

tents were pitched. The dogs were of immense size, and ragged, like

the yaks, from their winter coat hanging to their flanks in great

masses; each was chained near a large stone, on and off which he

leapt as he gave tongue; they are very savage, but great cowards, and

not remarkable for intelligence.

Illustration--LEPCHA GIRLS (THE OUTER FIGURES), AND TIBETAN WOMEN.

The people were natives of Gearee and Kambajong, in the adjacent

province of Dingcham, which is the loftiest, coldest, most windy and

arid in Eastern Tibet; and in which are the sources of all the

streams that flow to Nepal; Sikkim, and Bhotan on the one side, and

into the Yaru-tsampu on the other. These families repair yearly to

Palung, with their flocks, herds, and tents, paying tribute to the

Sikkim Rajah for the privilege: they arrive in June and leave in

September. Both men and women were indescribably filthy; as they

never wash, their faces were perfectly black with smoke and exposure,

and the women's with a pigment of grease as a protection from the

wind. The men were dressed as usual, in the blanket-cloak, with brass

pipes, long knives, flint, steel, and amulets; the women wore

similar, but shorter cloaks, with silver and copper girdles,

trowsers, and flannel boots. Their head-dresses were very remarkable.

A circular band of plaited yak's hair was attached to the back hair,

and encircled the head like a saint's glory,* [I find in Ermann's

"Siberia" (i., p. 210), that the married women of Yekaterinberg wear

a head-dress like an ancient glory covered with jewels, whilst the

unmarried ones plait their tresses. The same distinguished traveller

mentions having seen a lad of six years old suckled, amongst the

Tungooze of East Siberia.] at some distance round it. A band crossed

the forehead, from which coins, corals, and turquoises, hung down to

the eyebrows, while lappets of these ornaments fell over the ears.

Their own hair was plaited in two tails, brought over the shoulders,

and fastened together in front; and a little yellow felt cap,

traversely elongated, so as not to interfere with the shape of the

glory, was perched on the head. Their countenances were pleasing, and

their manners timid.

The children crawled half-naked about the tent, or burrowed like

moles in an immense heap of goats' and sheep-droppings, piled up for

fuel, upon which the family lounged. An infant in arms was playing

with a "coral," ornamented much like ours, and was covered with

jewels and coins. This custom of decorating children is very common

amongst half-civilised people; and the coral is, perhaps, one of the

last relics of a barbarous age that is retained amongst ourselves.

One mother was nursing her baby, and churning at the same time, by

rolling the goat-skin of yak-milk about on the ground. Extreme

poverty induces the practice of nursing the children for years; and

in one tent I saw a lad upwards of four years of age unconcernedly

taking food from his aunt, and immediately afterwards chewing hard

dry grains of maize.

The tents were pitched in holes about two feet and a half deep; and

within them a wall of similar height was built all round: in the

middle was a long clay arched fire-place, with holes above, over

which the cauldrons were placed, the fire being underneath. Saddles,

horse-cloths, and the usual accoutrements and implements of a nomade

people, all of the rudest description, hung about: there was no bed

or stool, but Chinese rugs for sleeping on. I boiled water on the

fire-place; its temperature (184.5 degrees) with that of the air

(45.5 degrees) gave an elevation of 15,867 feet. Barometric

observations, taken in October, at a point considerably lower down

the stream, made the elevation 15,620 feet, or a few feet lower than

Kongra Lama pass.

A Lama accompanied this colony of Tibetans, a festival in honour of

Kinchinjhow being annually held at a large chait hard by, which is

painted red, ornamented with banners, and surmounted by an enormous

yak's skull, that faces the mountain. The Lama invited me into his

tent, where I found a wife and family. An extempore altar was at one

end, covered with wafers and other pretty ornaments, made of butter,

stamped or moulded with the fingers.* [The extensive use of these

ornaments throughout Tibet, on the occasion of religious festivals,

is alluded to by MM. Huc and Gabet.] The tents being insupportably

noisome, I preferred partaking of the buttered brick-tea in the open

air; after which, I went to see the shawl-wool goats sheared in a pen

close by. There are two varieties: one is a large animal, with great

horns, called "Rappoo;"* [This is the "Changra;" and the smaller the

"Chyapu" of Mr. Hodgson's catalogue. (See "British Museum

Catalogue.")] the other smaller, and with slender horns, is called

"Tsilloo." The latter yields the finest wool, but they are mixed for

ordinary purposes. I was assured that the sheep (of which large

flocks were grazing near) afford the finest wool of any. The animals

were caught by the tail, their legs tied, the long winter's hair

pulled out, and the remainder cut away with a broad flat knife, which

was sharpened with a scythe-stone. The operation was clumsily

performed, and the skin much cut.

Turnips are grown at Palung during the short stay of the people, and

this is the most alpine cultivation in Sikkim: the seed is sown early

in July, and the tubers are fit to be eaten in October, if the season

is favourable. They did not come to maturity this year, as I found on

again visiting this spot in October; but their tops had afforded the

poor Tibetans some good vegetables. The mean temperature of the three

summer months at Palung is probably about 40 degrees, an element of

comparatively little importance in regulating the growth and ripening

of vegetables at great elevations in Tibetan climates; where a warm

exposure, the amount of sunshine, and of radiated heat, have a much

greater influence.

During the winter, when these families repair to Kambajong, in Tibet,

the flocks and herds are all stall-fed, with long grass, cut on the

marshy banks of the Yaru. Snow is said to fall five feet deep at that

place, chiefly after January; and it melts in April.

After tea, I ascended the hills overhanging the Lachen valley, which

are very bare and stony; large flocks of sheep were feeding on them,

chiefly upon small tufted sedges, allied to the English _Carex

pilularis,_ which here forms the greatest part of the pasture: the

grass grows mixed with it in small tufts, and is the common Scotch

mountain pasture-grass (_Festuca ovina_).

On the top of these hills, which, for barrenness, reminded me of the

descriptions given of the Siberian steppes, I found, at 17,000 feet

elevation, several minute arctic plants, with _Rhododendron nivale,_

the most alpine of woody plants. On their sterile slopes grew a

curious plant allied to the _Cherleria_ of the Scotch Alps, forming

great hemispherical balls on the ground, eight to ten inches across,

altogether resembling in habit the curious Balsambog (_Bolax

glebaria_) of the Falkland Islands, which grows in very similar

scenes.* [_Arenaria rupifraga,_ Fenzl. This plant is mentioned by Dr.

Thomson ("Travels in Tibet," p. 426) as common in Tibet, as far north

as the Karakoram, at an elevation between 16,000 and 18,000 feet. In

Sikkim it is found at the same level. Specimens of it are exhibited

in the Kew Museum. As one instance illustrative of the chaotic state

of Indian botany, I may here mention that this little plant, a

denizen of such remote and inaccessible parts of the globe, and which

has only been known to science a dozen years, bears the burthen of no

less than six names in botanical works. This is the _Bryomorpha

rupifraga_ of Karelin and Kireloff (enumeration of Soongarian

plants), who first described it from specimens gathered in 1841, on

the Alatau mountains (east of Lake Aral). In Ledebour's "Flora

Rossica" (i. p. 780) it appears as _Arenaria_ (sub-genus

_Dicranilla_) _rupifraga,_ Fenzl, MS. In Decaisne and Cambessede's

Plants of Jacquemont's "Voyage aus Indes Orientales," it is described

as _Flourensia caespitosa,_ and in the plates of that work it appears

as _Periandra caespitosa_; and lastly, in Endlicher's "Genera

Plantarum," Fenzl proposes the long new generic name of

_Thylacospermum_ for it. I have carefully compared the Himalayan and

Alatau plants, and find no difference between them, except that the

flower of the Himalayan one has 4 petals and sepals, 8 stamens, and 2

styles, and that of the Alatau 5 petals and sepals, 10 stamens, and

2-3 styles, characters which are very variable in allied plants.

The flowers appear polygamous, as in the Scotch alpine _Cherleria,_

which it much resembles in babit, and to which it is very nearly

related in botanical characters.]

A few days afterwards, I again visited Palung, with the view of

ascertaining the height of perpetual snow on the south face of

Kinchinjhow; unfortunately, bad weather came on before I reached the

Tibetans, from whom I obtained a guide in consequence. From this

place a ride of about four miles brought me to the source of the

Chachoo, in a deep ravine, containing the terminations of several

short, abrupt glaciers,* [De Saussure's glaciers of the second order:

see "Forbes' Travels in the Alps," p. 79.] and into which were

precipitated avalanches of snow and ice. I found it impossible to

distinguish the glacial ice from perpetual snow; the larger beds of

snow where presenting a flat surface, being generally drifts

collected in hollows, or accumulations that have fallen from above:

when these accumulations rest on slopes they become converted into

ice, and obeying the laws of fluidity, flow downwards as glaciers.

I boiled water at the most advantageous position I could select, and

obtained an elevation of 16,522 feet.* [Temperature of boiling water,

183 degrees, air 35 degrees.] It was snowing heavily at this time,

and we crouched under a gigantic boulder, benumbed with cold. I had

fortunately brought a small phial of brandy, which, with hot water

from the boiling-apparatus kettle, refreshed us wonderfully.

The spur that divides these plains from the Lachen river, rises close

to Kinchinjhow, as a lofty cliff of quartzy gneiss, dipping

north-east 30 degrees: this I had noticed from the Kongra Lama side.

On this side the dip was also to the northward, and the whole cliff

was crossed by cleavage planes, dipping south, and apparently cutting

those of the foliation at an angle of about 60 degrees: it is the

only decided instance of the kind I met with in Sikkim. I regretted

not being able to examine it carefully, but I was prevented by the

avalanches of stones and snow which were continually being detached

from its surface.* [I extremely regret not having been at this time

acquainted with Mr. D. Sharpe's able essays on the foliation,

cleavage, etc., of slaty rocks, gneiss, etc., in the Geological

Society's Journal (ii. p. 74, and v. p. 111), and still more so with

his subsequent papers in the Philosophical Transactions: as I cannot

doubt that many of his observations, and in particular those which

refer to the great arches in which the folia (commonly called strata)

are disposed, would receive ample illustration from a study of the

Himalaya. At vol. i. chapter xiii, I have distantly alluded to such

an arrangement of the gneiss, etc., into arches, in Sikkim, to which

my attention was naturally drawn by the writings of Professor

Sedgwick ("Geolog. Soc. Trans.") and Mr. Darwin ("Geological

Observations in South America") on these obscure subjects. I may add

that wherever I met with the gneiss, mica, schists, and slates, in

Sikkim, very near one another, I invariably found that their cleavage

and foliation were conformable. This, for example, may be seen in the

bed of the great Rungeet, below Dorjiling, where the slates overlie

mica schists, and where the latter contain beds of conglomerate. In

these volumes I have often used the more familiar term of

stratification, for foliation. This arises from my own ideas of the

subject not having been clear when the notes were taken.]

The plants found close to the snow were minute primroses, _Parnassia,

Draba,_ tufted wormwoods (_Artemisia_), saxifrages, gentian, small

_Compositae,_ grasses, and sedges. Our ponies unconcernedly scraped

away the snow with their hoofs, and nibbled the scanty herbage.

When I mounted mine, he took the bit between his teeth, and

scampered back to Palung, over rocks and hills, through bogs and

streams; and though the snow was so blinding that no object could be

distinguished, he brought me to the tents with unerring instinct, as

straight as an arrow.

Wild animals are few in kind and rare in individuals, at Tungu and

elsewhere on this frontier; though there is no lack of cover and

herbage. This must be owing to the moist cold atmosphere; and it

reminds me that a similar want of animal life is characteristic of

those climates at the level of the sea, which I have adduced as

bearing a great analogy to the Himalaya, in lacking certain natural

orders of plants. Thus, New Zealand and Fuegia possess, the former no

land animal but a rat, and the latter very few indeed, and none of

any size. Such is also the case in Scotland and Norway. Again, on the

damp west coast of Tasmania, quadrupeds are rare; whilst the dry

eastern half of the island once swarmed with opossums and kangaroos.

A few miles north of Tungu, the sterile and more lofty provinces of

Tibet abound in wild horses, antelopes, hares, foxes, marmots, and

numerous other quadrupeds; although their altitude, climate, and

scanty vegetation are apparently even more unsuited to support such

numbers of animals of so large a size than the karroos of South

Africa, and the steppes of Siberia and Arctic America, which

similarly abound in animal life. The laws which govern the

distribution of large quadrupeds seem to be intimately connected with

those of climate; and we should have regard to these considerations

in our geological speculations, and not draw hasty conclusions from

the absence of the remains of large herbivora in formations

disclosing a redundant vegetation.

Besides the wild sheep found on these mountains, a species of marmot*

[The _Lagopus Tibetanus_ of Hodgson. I procured one that displayed an

extraordinary tenacity of life: part of the skull was shot away, and

the brain protruded; still it showed the utmost terror at my dog.]

("Kardiepieu" of the Tibetans) sometimes migrates in swarms (like the

Lapland "Lemming") from Tibet as far as Tungu. There are few birds

but red-legged crows and common ravens. Most of the insects belonged

to arctic types, and they were numerous in individuals.* [As _Meloe,_

and some flower-feeding lamellicorns. Of butterflies I saw blues

(_Polyommatus_), marbled whites, _Pontia, Colias_ and _Argynnis._

A small _Curculio_ was frequent, and I found _Scolopendra,_ ants and

earthworms, on sunny exposures as high as 15,500 feet.]

Illustration--TIBET MARMOT.

The Choongtam Lama was at a small temple near Tungu during the whole

of my stay, but he would not come to visit me, pretending to be

absorbed in his devotions. Passing one day by the temple, I found him

catechising two young aspirants for holy orders. He is one of the

Dukpa sect, wore his mitre, and was seated cross-legged on the grass

with his scriptures on his knees: he put questions to the boys, when

he who answered best took the other some yards off, put him down on

his hands and knees, threw a cloth over his back, and mounted; then

kicking, spurring, and cuffing his steed, he was galloped back to the

Lama and kicked off; when the catechising recommenced.

I spent a week at Tungu most pleasantly, ascending the neighbouring

mountains, and mixing with the people, whom I found uniformly kind,

frank, and extremely hospitable; sending their children after me to

invite me to stop at their tents, smoke, and drink tea; often

refusing any remuneration, and giving my attendants curds and

yak-flesh. If on foot, I was entreated to take a pony; and when tired

I never scrupled to catch one, twist a yak-hair rope over its jaw as

a bridle, and throwing a goat-hair cloth upon its back (if no saddle

were at hand), ride away whither I would. Next morning a boy would be

sent for the steed, perhaps bringing an invitation to come and take

it again. So I became fond of brick-tea boiled with butter, salt, and

soda, and expert in the Tartar saddle; riding about perched on the

shoulders of a rough pony, with my feet nearly on a level with my

pockets, and my knees almost meeting in front.

On the 28th of July much snow fell on the hills around, as low as

14,000 feet, and half an inch of rain at Tungu;* [An inch and a half

fell at Dorjiling during the same period.] the former soon melted,

and I made an excursion to Chomiomo on the following day, hoping to

reach the lower line of perpetual snow. Ascending the valley of the

Chomiochoo, I struck north up a steep slope, that ended in a spur of

vast tabular masses of quartz and felspar, piled like slabs in a

stone quarry, dipping south-west 5 degrees to 10 degrees, and

striking north-west. These resulted from the decomposition of gneiss,

from which the layers of mica bad been washed away, when the rain and

frost splitting up the fragments, the dislocation is continued to a

great depth into the substance of the rock.

Large silky cushions of a forget-me-not grew amongst the rocks,

spangled with beautiful blue flowers, and looking like turquoises set

in silver: the _Delphininin glaciale_* [This new species has been

described for the "Flora Indica" of Dr. Thomson and myself: it is a

remarkable plant, very closely resembling, and as it were

representing, the _D. Brunonianum_ of the western Himalaya.

The latter plant smells powerfully of musk, but not so disagreeably

as this does.] was also abundant, exhaling a rank smell of musk.

It indicates a very great elevation in Sikkim, and on my ascent far

above it, therefore, I was not surprised to find water boil at 182.6

degrees (air 43 degrees), which gives an altitude of 16,754 feet.

A dense fog, with sleet, shut out all view; and I did not know in

what direction to proceed higher, beyond the top of the sharp, stony

ridge I had attained. Here there was no perpetual snow, which is to

be accounted for by the nature of the surface facilitating its

removal, the edges of the rocks which project through the snow,

becoming heated, and draining off the water as it melts.

During my stay at Tungu, from the 23rd to the 30th of July, no day

passed without much deposition of moisture, but generally in so light

a form that throughout the whole time but one inch was registered in

the rain-gauge; during the same time four inches and a half of rain

fell at Dorjiling, and three inches and a half at Calcutta. The mean

temperature was 50 degrees (max. 65 degrees, min. 40.7 degrees);

extremes, 65/38 degrees. The mean range (23.3 degrees) was thus much

greater than at Dorjiling, where it was only 8.9 degrees.

A thermometer, sunk three feet, varied only a few tenths from 57.6

degrees. By twenty-five comparative observations with Calcutta,

1 degree Fahr. is the equivalent of every 362 feet of ascent; and

twenty comparative observations with Dorjiling give 1 degree for

every 340 feet. The barometer rose and fell at the same hours as at

lower elevations; the tide amounting to 0.060 inch, between 9.50 a.m.

and 4 p.m.

I left Tungu on the 30th of July, and spent that night at Tallum;

where a large party of men had just arrived, with loads of madder,

rice, canes, bamboos, planks, etc., to be conveyed to Tibet on yaks

and ponies.* [About 300 loads of timber, each of six planks, are said

to be taken across the Kongra Lama pass annually; and about 250 of

rice, besides canes, madder, bamboos, cottons, cloths, and

_Symplocos_ leaves for dyeing. This is, no doubt, a considerably

exaggerated statement, and may refer to both the Kongra Lama and

Donkia passes.] On the following day I descended to Lamteng,

gathering a profusion of fine plants by the way.

The flat on which I had encamped at this place in May and June, being

now a marsh, I took up my abode for two days in one of the houses,

and paid the usual penalty of communication with these filthy people;

for which my only effectual remedy was boiling all my garments and

bedding. Yet the house was high, airy, and light; the walls composed

of bamboo, lath, and plaster.

Tropical Cicadas ascend to the pine-woods above Lamteng in this

month, and chirp shrilly in the heat of the day; and glow-worms fly

about at night. The common Bengal and Java toad, _Bufo scabra,_

abounded in the marshes, a remarkable instance of wide geographical

distribution, for a Batrachian which is common at the level of the

sea under the tropics.

On the 3rd of August I descended to Choongtam, which I reached on the

5th. The lakes on the Chateng flat (alt. 8,750 feet) were very full,

and contained many English water-plants;* [_Sparganium ramosum,

Eleocharis palustris, Scirpus triqueter,_ and _Callitriche verna?_

Some very tropical genera ascend thus high; as _Paspalum_ amongst

grasses, and _Scleria,_ a kind of sedge.] the temperature of the

water was 92 degrees near the edges, where a water-insect

(_Notonecta_) was swimming about.

Below this I passed an extensive stalactitic deposit of lime, and a

second occurred lower down, on the opposite side of the valley. The

apparently total absence of limestone rocks in any part of Sikkim

(for which I made careful search), renders these deposits, which are

far from unfrequent, very curious. Can the limestone, which appears

in Tibet, underlie the gneiss of Sikkim? We cannot venture to assume

that these lime-charged streams, which in Sikkim burst from the steep

flanks of narrow mountain spurs, at elevations between 1000 and 7000

feet, have any very remote or deep origin. If the limestone be not

below the gneiss, it must either occur intercalated with it, or be

the remains of a formation now all but denuded in Sikkim.

Terrific landslips had taken place along the valley, carrying down

acres of rock, soil, and pine-forests, into the stream. I saw one

from Kampo Samdong, on the opposite flank of the valley, which swept

over 100 yards in breadth of forest. I looked in vain for any signs

of scratching or scoring, at all comparable to that produced by

glacial action. The bridge at the Tuktoong, mentioned at chapter xix,

being carried away, we had to ascend for 1000 feet (to a place where

the river could be crossed) by a very precipitous path, and descend

on the opposite side. In many places we had great difficulty in

proceeding, the track being obliterated by the rains, torrents, and

landslips. Along the flats, now covered with a dense rank vegetation,

we waded ankle, and often knee, deep in mud, swarming with leeches;

and instead of descending into the valley of the now too swollen

Lachen, we made long detours, rounding spurs by canes and bamboos

suspended from trees.

At Choongtam the rice-fields were flooded: and the whole flat was a

marsh, covered with tropical grasses and weeds, and alive with

insects, while the shrill cries of cicadas, frogs and birds, filled

the air. Sand-flies, mosquitos, cockroaches, and enormous

cockchafers,* [_Eucerris Griffithii,_ a magnificent species.

Three very splendid insects of the outer ranges of Sikkim never

occurred in the interior: these are a gigantic Curculio (_Calandra_)

a wood-borer; a species of Goliath-beetle, _Cheirotonus Macleaii,_

and a smaller species of the same rare family, _Trigonophorus

nepalensis_; of these the former is very scarce, the latter extremely

abundant, flying about at evenings; both are flower-feeders, eating

honey and pollen. In the summer of 1848, the months at Dorjiling were

well marked by the swarms of peculiar insects that appeared in

inconceivable numbers; thus, April was marked by a great black

_Passalus,_ a beetle one-and-a-half inch long, that flies in the face

and entangles itself in the hair; May, by stag-beetles and

longicorns; June, by _Coccinella_ (lady-birds), white moths, and

flying-bugs; July, by a _Dryptis?_ a long-necked carabideous insect;

August, by myriads of earwigs, cockroaches, Goliath-beetles, and

cicadas; September, by spiders.] _Mantis,_ great locusts,

grasshoppers, flying-bugs, crickets, ants, spiders, caterpillars, and

leeches, were but a few of the pests that swarmed in my tent and made

free with my bed. Great lazy butterflies floated through the air;

_Thecla_ and _Hesperides_ skipped about, and the great _Nymphalidae_

darted around like swallows. The venomous black cobra was common, and

we left the path with great caution, as it is a lazy reptile, and

lies basking in the sun; many beautiful and harmless green snakes,

four feet long, glided amongst the bushes. My dogs caught a "Rageu,"*

["Ragoah," according to Hodgson: but it is not the _Procapra

picticaudata_ of Tibet.] a very remarkable animal, half goat and half

deer; the flesh was good and tender, dark-coloured, and lean.

I remained here till the 15th of August,* [Though 5 degrees further

north, and 5,268 feet above the level of Calcutta, the mean

temperature at Choongtam this month was only 12. degrees cooler than

at Calcutta; forty observations giving 1 degree Fahr. as equal to 690

feet of elevation; whereas in May the mean of twenty-seven

observations gave 1 degree Fahr. as equal to 260 feet, the mean

difference of temperature being then 25 degrees. The mean maximum of

the day was 80 degrees, and was attained at 11 a.m., after which

clouds formed, and the thermometer fell to 66 degrees at sunset, and

56 degrees at night. In my blanket tent the heat rose to upwards of

100 degrees in calm weather. The afternoons were generally squally

and rainy.] arranging my Lachen valley collections previous to

starting for the Lachoong, whence I hoped to reach Tibet again by a

different route, crossing the Donkia pass, and thence exploring the

sources of the Teesta at the Cholamoo lakes.

Whilst here I ascertained the velocity of the currents of the Lachen

and Lachoong rivers. Both were torrents, than which none could be

more rapid, short of becoming cataracts: the rains were at their

height, and the melting of the snows at its maximum. I first measured

several hundred yards along the banks of each river above the

bridges, repeating this several times, as the rocks and jungle

rendered it very difficult to do it accurately: then, sitting on the

bridge, I timed floating masses of different materials and sizes that

were thrown in at the upper point. I was surprised to find the

velocity of the Lachen only nine miles per hour, for its waters

seemed to shoot past with the speed of an arrow, but the floats

showed the whole stream to be so troubled with local eddies and

backwaters, that it took from forty-three to forty-eight seconds for

each float to pass over 200 yards, as it was perpetually submerged by

under-currents. The breadth of the river averaged sixty-eight feet,

and the discharge was 4,420 cubic feet of water per second.

The temperature was 57 degrees.

At the Lachoong bridge the jungle was still denser, and the banks

quite inaccessible in many places. The mean velocity was eight miles

an hour, the breadth ninety-five feet, the depth about the same as

that of the Lachen, giving a discharge of 5,700 cubic feet of water

per second;* [Hence it appears that the Lachoong, being so much the

more copious stream, should in one sense be regarded as the

continuation of the Teesta, rather than the Lachen, which, however,

has by far the most distant source. Their united streams discharge

upwards of 10,000 cubic feet of water per second in the height of the

rains! which is, however, a mere fraction of the discharge of the

Teesta when that river leaves the Himalaya. The Ganges at Hurdwar

discharges 8000 feet per second during the dry season.] its

temperature was also 57 degrees. These streams retain an

extraordinary velocity, for many miles upwards; the Lachen to its

junction with the Zemu at 9000 feet, and the Zemu itself as far up as

the Thlonok, at 10,000 feet, and the Lachoong to the village of that

name, at 8000 feet: their united streams appear equally rapid till

they become the Teesta at Singtam.* [The slope of the bed of the

Lachen from below the confluence of the Zemu to the village of

Singtam is 174 feet per mile, or 1 foot in 30; that of the Lachoong

from the village of that name to Singtam is considerably less.]

On the 15th of August, having received supplies from Dorjiling, I

started up the north bank of the Lachoong, following the Singtam

Soubah, who accompanied me officially, and with a very bad grace;

poor fellow, he expected me to have returned with him to Singtam, and

thence gone back to Dorjiling, and many a sore struggle we had on

this point. At Choongtam he had been laid up with ulcerated legs from

the bites of leeches and sand-flies, which required my treatment.

The path was narrow, and ran through a jungle of mixed tropical and

temperate plants,* [As _Paris, Dipsacus, Circaea, Thalictrum,

Saxifraga ciliaris, Spiranthes, Malva, Hypoxis, Anthericum,

Passiflora, Drosera, Didymocarpus,_ poplar, _Calamagrostis,_ and

_Eupatorium._] many of which are not found at this elevation on the

damp outer ranges of Dorjiling. We crossed to the south bank by a

fine cane-bridge forty yards long, the river being twenty-eight

across and here I have to record the loss of my dog Kinchin; the

companion of all my late journeyings, and to whom I had become really

attached. He had a bad habit, of which I had vainly tried to cure

him, of running for a few yards on the round bamboos by which the

cane-bridges are crossed, and on which it was impossible for a dog to

retain his footing: in this situation he used to get thoroughly

frightened, and lie down on the bamboos with his legs hanging over

the water, and having no hold whatever. I had several times rescued

him from this perilous position, which was always rendered more

imminent from the shaking of the bridge as I approached him. On the

present occasion, I stopped at the foot of some rocks below the

bridge, botanizing, and Kinchin having scrambled up the rocks, ran on

to the bridge. I could not see him, and was not thinking about him,

when suddenly his shrill, short barks of terror rang above the

roaring torrent. I hastened to the bridge, but before I could get to

it, he had lost his footing, and had disappeared. Holding on by the

cane, I strained my eyes till the bridge seemed to be swimming up the

valley, and the swift waters to be standing still, but to no purpose;

he had been carried under at once, and swept away miles below.

For many days I missed him by my side on the mountain, and by my feet

in camp. He had become a very handsome dog, with glossy black hair,

pendent triangular ears, short muzzle, high forehead, jet-black eyes,

straight limbs, arched neck, and a most glorious tail curling over

his back.* [The woodcut at vol. i. chapter ix, gives the character of

the Tibet mastiff, to which breed his father belonged; but it is not

a portrait of himself, having been sketched from a dog of the pure

breed, in the Zoological Society's Gardens, by C. Jenyns, Esq.]

A very bad road led to the village of Keadom, situated on a flat

terrace several hundred feet above the river, and 6,609 feet above

the sea, where I spent the night. Here are cultivated plantains and

maize, although the elevation is equal to parts of Dorjiling, where

these plants do not ripen.

The river above Keadom is again crossed, by a plank bridge, at a

place where the contracted streams flow between banks forty feet

high, composed of obscurely stratified gravel, sand, and water-worn

boulders. Above this the path ascends lofty flat-topped spurs, which

overhang the river, and command some of the most beautiful scenery in

Sikkim. The south-east slopes are clothed with _Abies Brunoniana_ at

8000 feet elevation, and cleft by a deep ravine, from which projects

what appears to be an old moraine, fully 1500 or perhaps 2000 feet

high. Extensive landslips on its steep flank expose (through the

telescope) a mass of gravel and angular blocks, while streams cut

deep channels in it.

This valley is far more open and grassy than that of the Lachen, and

the vegetation also differs much.* [_Umbelliferae_ and _Compositae_

abound, and were then flowering; and an orchis (_Satyrium

Nepalense_), scented like our English _Gymnadenia,_ covered the

ground in some places, with tall green _Habenariae_ and a yellow

_Spathoglottis,_ a genus with pseudo-bulbs. Of shrubs, _Xanthoxylon,

Rhus, Prinsepia, Cotoneaster, Pyrus,_ poplar and oak, formed thickets

along the path; while there were as many as eight and nine kinds of

balsams, some eight feet high.] In the afternoon we reached Lachoong,

which is by far the most picturesque village in the temperate region

of Sikkim. Grassy flats of different levels, sprinkled with brushwood

and scattered clumps of pine and maple, occupy the valley; whose west

flanks rise in steep, rocky, and scantily wooded grassy slopes. About

five miles to the north the valley forks; two conspicuous domes of

snow rising from the intermediate mountains. The eastern valley leads

to lofty snowed regions, and is said to be impracticable; the

Lachoong flows down the western, which appeared rugged, and covered

with pine woods. On the east, Tunkra mountain* [This mountain is seen

from Dorjiling; its elevation is about 18,700 feet.] rises in a

superb unbroken sweep of dark pine-wood and cliffs, surmounted by

black rocks and white fingering peaks of snow. South of this, the

valley of the Tunkrachoo opens, backed by sharp snowed pinnacles,

which form the continuation of the Chola range; over which a pass

leads to the Phari district of Tibet, which intervenes between Sikkim

and Bhotan. Southwards the view is bounded by snowy mountains, and

the valley seems blocked up by the remarkable moraine-like spur which

I passed above Keadom.

Illustration--LACHOONG VALLEY AND VILLAGE, LOOKING SOUTH.

Stupendous moraines rise 1500 feet above the Lachoong in several

concentric series, curving downwards and outwards, so as to form a

bell-shaped mouth to the valley of the Tunkrachoo. Those on the upper

flank are much the largest; and the loftiest of them terminates in a

conical hill crowned with Boodhist flags, and its steep sides cut

into horizontal roads or terraces, one of which is so broad and flat

as to suggest the idea of its having been cleared by art.

Illustration--LOFTY ANCIENT MORAINES IN THE LACHOONG VALLEY, LOOKING

SOUTH-EAST.

On the south side of the Tunkrachoo river the moraines are also more

or less terraced, as is the, floor of the Lachoong valley, and its

east slopes, 1000 feet up.* [I have since been greatly struck with

the similarity between the features of this valley, and those of

Chamouni (though the latter is on a smaller scale) above the Lavanchi

moraine. The spectator standing in the expanded part below the

village of Argentiere, and looking upwards, sees the valley closed

above by the ancient moraine of the Argentiere glacier, and below by

that of Lavanchi; and an all sides the slopes are cut into terraces,

strewed with boulders. I found traces of stratified pebbles and sand

on the north flank of the Lavanchi moraine however, which I failed to

discover in those of Lachoong. The average slope of these pine-clad

Sikkim valleys much approximates to that of Chamouni, and never

approaches the precipitous character of the Bernese Alps' valleys,

Kandersteg, Lauterbrunnen, and Grindelwald.]

The river is fourteen yards broad, and neither deep nor rapid: the

village is on the east bank, and is large for Sikkim; it contains

fully 100 good wooden houses, raised on posts, and clustered together

without order. It was muddy and intolerably filthy, and intersected

by some small streams, whose beds formed the roads, and, at the same

time, the common sewers of the natives. There is some wretched

cultivation in fields,* [Full of such English weeds as shepherd's

purse, nettles, _Solanum nigrum,_ and dock; besides many Himalayan

ones, as balsams, thistles, a beautiful geranium, mallow, _Haloragis_

and Cucurbitaceous plants.] of wheat, barley, peas, radishes, and

turnips. Rice was once cultivated at this elevation (8000 feet), but

the crop was uncertain; some very tropical grasses grow wild here, as

_Eragrostis_ and _Panicum._ In gardens the hollyhock is seen: it is

said to be introduced through Tibet from China; also _Pinus excelsa_

from Bhotan, peaches, walnuts, and weeping willows. A tall poplar was

pointed out to me as a great wonder; it had two species of _Pyrus_

growing on its boughs, evidently from seed; one was a mountain ash,

the other like _Pyrus Aria._

Soon after camping, the Lachoong Phipun, a very tall, intelligent,

and agreeable looking man, waited on me with the usual presents, and

a request that I would visit his sick father. His house was lofty and

airy: in the inner room the sick man was stretched on a board,

covered with a blanket, and dying of pressure on the brain; he was

surrounded by a deputation of Lamas from Teshoo Loombo, sent for in

this emergency. The principal one was a fat fellow, who sat

cross-legged before a block-printed Tibetan book, plates of raw meat,

rice, and other offerings, and the bells, dorje, etc. of his

profession. Others sat around, reading or chanting services, and

filling the room with incense. At one end of the apartment was a good

library in a beautifully carved book-case.

Illustration--HEAD AND FEET OF TIBET MARMOT.

CHAPTER XXII.

Leave Lachoong for Tunkra pass -- Moraines and their vegetation --

Pines of great dimensions -- Wild currants -- Glaciers -- Summit of

pass -- Elevation -- Views -- Plants -- Winds -- Choombi district --

Lacheepia rock -- Extreme cold -- Kinchinjunga -- Himalayan grouse --

Meteorological observations -- Return to Lachoong -- Oaks -- Ascent

to Yeumtong -- Flats and debacles -- Buried pine-trunks -- Perpetual

snow -- Hot springs -- Behaviour of Singtam Soubah -- Leave for Momay

Samdong -- Upper limit of trees -- Distribution of plants -- Glacial

terraces, etc. -- Forked Donkia -- Moutonneed rocks -- Ascent to

Donkia pass -- Vegetation -- Scenery -- Lakes -- Tibet -- Bhomtso --

Arun river -- Kiang-lah mountains -- Yaru-Tsampu river -- Appearance

of Tibet -- Kambajong -- Jigatzi -- Kinchinjhow, and Kinchinjunga --

Chola range -- Deceptive appearance of distant landscape -- Perpetual

snow -- Granite -- Temperatures -- Pulses -- Plants -- Tripe de roche

-- Return to Momay -- Dogs and yaks -- Birds -- Insects -- Quadrupeds

-- Hot springs -- Marmots -- Kinchinjhow glacier.

The Singtam Soubah being again laid up here from the consequences of

leech-bites, I took the opportunity of visiting the Tunkra-lah pass,

represented as the most snowy in Sikkim; which I found to be the

case. The route lay over the moraines on the north flank of the

Tunkrachoo, which are divided by narrow dry gullies,* [These ridges

of the moraine, separated by gullies, indicate the progressive

retirement of the ancient glacier, after periods of rest. The same

phenomena may be seen, on a diminutive scale, in the Swiss Alps, by

any one who carefully examines the lateral and often the terminal

moraines of any retiring or diminishing glacier, at whose base or

flanks are concentric ridges, which are successive deposits.] and

composed of enormous blocks disintegrating into a deep layer of clay.

All are clothed with luxuriant herbage and flowering shrubs,*

[_Ranunculus, Clematis, Thalictrum, Anemone, Aconitum variegatum_ of

Europe, a scandent species, Berberry, _Deutzia, Philadelphus,_ Rose,

Honeysuckle, Thistles, Orchis, _Habenaria, Fritillaria, Aster,

Calimeris, Verbascum thapsus, Pedicularis, Euphrasia, Senecio,

Eupatorium, Dipsacus, Euphorbia,_ Balsam, _Hypericum, Gentiana,

Halenia, Codonopsis, Polygonum._] besides small larches and pines,

rhododendrons and maples; with _Enkianthus, Pyrus,_ cherry, _Pieris,_

laurel, and _Goughia._ The musk-deer inhabits these woods, and at

this season I have never seen it higher. Large monkeys are also found

on the skirts of the pine-forests, and the _Ailurus ochraceus_

(Hodgs.), a curious long-tailed animal peculiar to the Himalaya,

something between a diminutive bear and a squirrel. In the dense and

gigantic forest of _Abies Brunoniana_ and silver fir, I measured one

of the former trees, and found it twenty-eight feet in girth, and

above 120 feet in height. The _Abies Webbiana_ attains thirty-five

feet in girth, with a trunk unbranched for forty feet.

The path was narrow and difficult in the wood, and especially along

the bed of the stream, where grew ugly trees of larch, eighty feet

high, and abundance of a new species of alpine strawberry with oblong

fruit. At 11,560 feet elevation, I arrived at an immense rock of

gneiss, buried in the forest. Here currant-bushes were plentiful,

generally growing on the pine-trunks, in strange association with a

small species of _Begonia,_ a hothouse tribe of plants in England.

Emerging from the forest, vast old moraines are crossed, in a shallow

mountain valley, several miles long and broad, 12,000 feet above the

sea, choked with rhododendron shrubs, and nearly encircled by snowy

mountains. Magnificent gentians grew here, also _Senecio, Corydalis,_

and the _Aconitum luridum_ (n. sp.), whose root is said to be as

virulent as _A. ferox_ and _A. Napellus._* [The result of Dr.

Thomson's and my examination of the Himplayan aconites (of which

there are seven species) is that the one generally known as

_A. ferox,_ and which supplies a great deal of the celebrated poison,

is the common _A. Napellus_ of Europe.] The plants were all fully a

month behind those of the Lachen valley at the same elevation.

Heavy rain fell in the afternoon, and we halted under some rocks: as

I had brought no tent, my bed was placed beneath the shelter of one,

near which the rest of the party burrowed. I supped off half a yak's

kidney, an enormous organ in this animal.

On the following morning we proceeded up the valley, towards a very

steep rocky barrier, through which the river cut a narrow gorge, and

beyond which rose lofty snowy mountains: the peak of Tunkra being to

our left hand (north). Saxifrages grew here in profuse tufts of

golden blossoms, and _Chrysosplenium,_ rushes, mountain-sorrel

(_Oxyria_), and the bladder-headed _Saussurea,_ whose flowers are

enclosed in inflated membranous bracts, and smell like putrid meat:

there were also splendid primroses, the spikenard valerian, and

golden Potentillas.

The ascent was steep and difficult, up a stony valley bounded by

precipices; in this the river flowed in a north-west direction, and

we were obliged to wade along it, though its waters were bitterly

cold, the temperature being 39 degrees. At 15,000 feet we passed from

great snowbeds to the surface of a glacier, partly an accumulation of

snow, increased by lateral glaciers: its slope was very gentle for

several miles; the surface was eroded by rain, and very rough, whilst

those of the lateral glaciers were ribboned, crevassed, and often

conspicuously marked with dirt-bands.

A gently sloping saddle, bare of snow, which succeeds the glacier,

forms the top of the Tunkra pass; it unites two snowy mountains, and

opens on the great valley of the Machoo, which flows in a part of

Tibet between Sikkim and Bhotan; its height is 16,083 feet above the

sea by barometer, and 16,137 feet by boiling-point. Nothing can

be more different than the two slopes of this pass; that by which I

had come presented a gentle snowy acclivity, bounded by precipitous

mountains; while that which opened before me was a steep, rocky,

broad, grassy valley, where not a particle of snow was to be seen,

and yaks were feeding near a small lake not 1000 feet down. Nor were

snowy mountains visible anywhere in this direction, except far to the

south-east, in Bhotan. This remarkable difference of climate is due

to the southerly wind which ascends the Tibetan or Machoo valley

being drained by intervening mountains before reaching this pass,

whilst the Sikkim current brings abundant vapours up the Teesta and

Lachoong valleys.

Chumulari lies to the E.N.E. of the Tunkra pass, and is only

twenty-six miles distant, but not seen; Phari is two marches off, in

an easterly direction, and Choombi one to the south-east. Choombi is

the general name given to a large Tibetan province that embraces the

head of the Machoo river, and includes Phari, Eusa, Choombi, and

about thirteen other villages, corresponding to as many districts,

that contain from under a dozen to 300 houses each, varying with the

season and state of trade. The latter is considerable, Phari being,

next to Dorjiling, the greatest Tibetan, Bhotan, Sikkim, and Indian

entrepot along the whole Himalaya east of Nepal. The general form of

Choombi valley is triangular, the broader end northwards: it is

bounded by the Chola range on the west from Donkia to Gipmoochi, and

by the Kamphee or Chakoong range to the east; which is, I believe,

continuous with Chumulari. These meridional ranges approximate to the

southward, so as to form a natural boundary to Choombi. The Machoo

river, rising from Chumulari, flows through the Choombi district, and

enters Bhotan at a large mart called Rinchingoong, whence it flows to

the plains of India, where it is called at Couch-Behar, the Torsha,

or, as some say, the Godadda, and falls into the Burrampooter.

The Choombi district is elevated, for the only cultivation is a

summer or alpine one, neither rice, maize, nor millet being grown

there: it is also dry, for the great height of the Bhotan mountains

and the form of the Machou valley cut off the rains, and there is no

dense forest. It is very mountainous, all carriage being on men's and

yaks' backs, and is populous for this part of the country, the

inhabitants being estimated at 3000, in the trading season, when many

families from Tibet and Bhotan erect booths at Phari.

A civil officer at Phari collects the revenue under the Lhassan

authorities, and there is also a Tibetan fort, an officer, and guard.

The inhabitants of this district more resemble the Bhotanese than

Tibetans, and are a thievish set, finding a refuge under the

Paro-Pilo of Bhotan,* [There was once a large monastery, called

Kazioo Goompa, at Choombi, with upwards of one hundred Lamas.

During a struggle between the Sikkim and Bhotan monks for superiority

in it, the abbot died. His avatar reappeared in two places at once!

in Bhotan as a relative of the Paro-Pilo himself, and in Sikkim as a

brother of the powerful Gangtok Kajee. Their disputes were referred

to the Dalai Lama, who pronounced for Sikkim. This was not to be

disputed by the Pilo, who, however, plundered the Goompa of its

silver, gold, and books, leaving nothing but the bare walls for the

successful Lama! The Lhassan authorities made no attempt to obtain

restitution, and the monastery has been consequently neglected.] who

taxes the refugees according to the estimate he forms of their

plunder. The Tibetans seldom pursue the culprits, as the Lhassan

government avoids all interference south of their own frontier.

From Choombi to Lhassa is fifteen days' long journeys for a man

mounted on a stout mule; all the rice passing through Phari is

monopolised there for the Chinese troops at Lhassa. The grazing for

yaks and small cattle is excellent in Choombi, and the _Pinus

excelsa_ is said to grow abundantly there, though unknown in Sikkim,

but I have not heard of any other peculiarity in its productions.

Very few plants grew amongst the stones at the top of the Tunkra

pass, and those few were mostly quite different from those of Palung

and Kongra Lama. A pink-floweerd _Arenaria,_ two kinds of

_Corydalis,_ the cottony _Saussurea,_ and diminutive primroses, were

the most conspicuous.* [The only others were _Leontopodium, Sedum,_

Saxifrage, _Ramunculus hyperboreus, Ligularia,_ two species of

_Polygonum,_ a _Trichostomum, Stereocaulon,_ and _Lecidea

geographica,_ not one grass or sedge.] The wind was variable, blowing

alternately up both valleys, bringing much snow when it blew from the

Teesta, though deflected to a north-west breeze; when, on the

contrary, it blew from Tibet, it was, though southerly, dry.

Clouds obscured all distant view. The temperature varied between noon

and 1.30 p.m. from 39 degrees to 40.5 degrees, the air being

extremely damp.

Returning to the foot of the glacier, I took up my quarters for two

days under an enormous rock overlooking the broad flat valley in

which I had spent the previous night, and directly fronting Tunkra

mountain, which bore north about five miles distant. This rock was

sixty to eighty feet high, and 15,250 feet above the sea; it was of

gneiss, and was placed on the top of a bleak ridge, facing the north;

no shrub or bush being near it. The gentle slope outwards of the rock

afforded the only shelter, and a more utterly desolate place than

Lacheepia, as it is called, I never laid my unhoused head in.

It commanded an incomparable view due west across the Lachoong

and Lachen valleys, of the whole group of Kinchinjunga snows, from

Tibet southwards, and as such was a most valuable position for

geographical purposes.

The night was misty, and though the temperature was 35 degrees, I was

miserably cold; for my blankets being laid on the bare ground, the

chill seemed to strike from the rock to the very marrow of my bones.

In the morning the fog hung till sunrise, when it rose majestically

from all the mountain-tops; but the view obtained was transient, for

in less than an hour the dense woolly banks of fog which choked the

valleys ascended like a curtain to the warmed atmosphere above, and

slowly threw a veil over the landscape. I waited till the last streak

of snow was shut out from my view, when I descended, to breakfast on

Himalayan grouse (_Tetrao-perdix nivicola_), a small gregarious bird

which inhabits the loftiest stony mountains, and utters a short cry

of "Quiok, quiok;" in character and appearance it is intermediate

between grouse and partridge, and is good eating, though tough.

Hoping to obtain another view, which might enable me to correct the

bearings taken that morning, I was tempted to spend a second night in

the open air at Lacheepia, passing the day botanizing* [Scarcely a

grass, and no _Astragali,_ grow on these stony and snowy slopes: and

the smallest heath-like _Andromeda,_ a still smaller _Menziesia_ (an

erotic genus, previously unknown in the Himalaya) and a prostrate

willow, are the only woody-stemmed plants above 15,000 feet.] in the

vicinity, and taking observations of the barometer and wet-bulb:

I also boiled three thermometers by turns, noting the grave errors

likely to attend observations of this instrument for elevation.*

[These will be more particularly alluded to in the Appendix, where

will be found a comparison of elevations, deduced from boiling point

and from barometric observations. The height of Lacheepia is 14,912

feet by boiling-point, and 15,262 feet by barometer.] Little rain

fell during the day, but it was heavy at night, though there was

fortunately no wind; and I made a more comfortable bed with tufts of

juniper brought up from below. Our fire was principally of wet

rhododendron wood, with masses of the aromatic dwarf species, which,

being full of resinous glands, blazed with fury. Next day, after a

very transient glimpse of the Kinchinjunga snows, I descended to

Lachoong, where I remained for some days botanizing. During my stay I

was several times awakened by all the noises and accompaniments of a

night-attack or alarm; screaming voices, groans, shouts, and

ejaculations, the beating of drums and firing of guns, and flambeaux

of pine-wood gleaming amongst the trees, and flitting from house to

house. The cause, I was informed, was the, presence of a demon, who

required exorcisement, and who generally managed to make the

villagers remember his visit, by their missing various articles after

the turmoil made to drive him away. The custom of driving out demons

in the above manner is constantly practised by the Lamas in Tibet:

MM. Huc and Gabet give a graphic account of such an operation during

their stay at Kounboum.

On the 29th of August I left Lachoong and proceeded up the valley.

The road ran along a terrace, covered with long grass, and bounded by

lofty banks of unstratified gravel and sand, and passed through

beautiful groves of green pines, rich in plants. No oak nor chesnut

ascends above 9000 feet here or elsewhere in the interior of Sikkim,

where they are replaced by a species of hazel (_Corylus_); in the

North Himalaya, on the other hand, an oak (_Quercus semecarpifolia,_

see vol. i., chapter viii) is amongst the most alpine trees, and the

nut is a different species, more resembling the European. On the

outer Sikkim ranges oaks (_Q. annulata?_) ascend to 10,000 feet, and

there is no hazel. Above the fork, the valley contracts extremely,

and its bed is covered with moraines and landslips, which often bury

the larches and pines. Marshes occur here and there, full of the

sweet-scented Hierochloe grass, the Scotch _Thalictrum alpinum,_ and

an _Eriocaulon,_ which ascends to 10,000 feet. The old moraines were

very difficult to cross, and on one I found a barricade, which had

been erected to deceive me regarding the frontier, had I chosen this

route instead of the Lachen one, in May.

Broad flats clothed with rhododendron, alternate with others covered

with mud, boulders, and gravel, which had flowed down from the gorges

on the west, and which still contained trees, inclined in all

directions, and buried up to their branches; some of these debacles

were 400 yards across, and sloped at an angle of 2 degrees to 3

degrees, bearing on their surfaces blocks fifteen yards in diameter.*

[None were to be compared in size and extent with that at Bex, at the

mouth of the Rhone valley.] They seem to subside materially, as I

perceived they had left marks many feet higher on the tree-trunks.

Such debacles must often bury standing forests in a very favourable

material, climate, and position for becoming fossilized.

On the 30th of August I arrived at Yeumtong, a small summer

cattle-station, on a flat by the Lachoong, 11,920 feet above the sea;

the general features of which closely resemble those of the narrow

Swiss valleys. The west flank is lofty and precipitous, with narrow

gullies still retaining the winter's snow, at 12,500 feet; the east

gradually slopes up to the two snowy domes seen from Lachoong; the

bed of the valley is alternately a flat lake-bed, in which the river

meanders at the rate of three and a half miles an hour, and sudden

descents, cumbered with old moraines, over which it rushes in sheets

of Loam. Silver-firs ascend nearly to 13,000 feet, where they are

replaced by large junipers, sixty feet high: up the valley Chango

Khang is seen, with a superb glacier descending to about 14,000 feet

on its south

flank. Enormous masses of rock were continually precipitated from the

west side, close to the shed in which I had taken up my quarters,

keeping my people in constant alarm, and causing a great commotion

among the yaks, dogs, and ponies. On the opposite side of the river

is a deep gorge; in which an immense glacier descends lower than any

I have seen in Sikkim. I made several attempts to reach it by the

gully of its discharging stream, but was always foiled by the rocks

and dense jungle of pines, rhododendron, and dwarf holly.

The snow-banks on the face of the dome-shaped mountain appearing

favourable for ascertaining the position of the level of perpetual

snow, I ascended to them on the 6th of September, and found the mean

elevation along an even, continuous, and gradual slope, with a full

south-west exposure, to be 15,985 feet by barometer, and 15,816 feet

by boiling-point. These beds of snow, however broad and convex,

cannot nevertheless be distinguished from glaciers: they occupy, it

is true, mountain slopes, and do not fill hollows (like glaciers

commonly so called), but they display the ribboned structure of ice,

and being viscous fluids, descend at a rate and to a distance

depending on the slope, and on the amount of annual accumulation

behind. Their termination must therefore be far below that point at

which all the snow that falls melts, which is the theoretical line of

perpetual snow. Before returning I attempted to proceed northwards to

the great glacier, hoping to descend by its lateral moraine, but a

heavy snow-storm drove me down to Yeumtong.

Some hot-springs burst from the bank of the Lachen a mile or so below

the village: they are used as baths, the patient remaining three days

at a time in them, only retiring to eat in a little shed close by.

The discharge amounts to a few gallons per minute; the temperature at

the source is 112.6 degrees, and 106 degrees in the bath.* [This

water boiled at 191.6 degrees, the same at which snow-water and that

of the river did; giving an elevation of 11,730 feet. Observations on

the mineral constituents of the water will be found in the Appendix.]

The water has a slightly saline taste; it is colourless, but emits

bubbles of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, blackening silver. A cold

spring (temperature 42 degrees) emerged close by, and the Lachoong

not ten yards off, was 47 degrees to 50 degrees. A conferva grows in

the hot water, and the garnets are worn out of the gneiss rock

exposed to its action.

The Singtam Soubah had been very sulky since leaving Choongtam, and I

could scarcely get a drop of milk or a slice of curd here. I had to

take him to task severely for sanctioning the flogging of one of my

men; a huntsman, who had offered me his services at Choongtam, and

who was a civil, industrious fellow, though he had procured me little

besides a huge monkey, which had nearly bitten off the head of his

best dog. I had made a point of consulting the Soubah before hiring

him, for fear of accidents; but this did not screen him from the

jealousy of the Choongtam Lama, who twice flogged him in the Goompa

with rattans (with the Soubah's consent), alleging that he had

quitted his service for mine. My people knew of this, but were afraid

to tell me, which the poor fellow did himself.

The Lachoong Phipun visited me on the 7tb of September: he had

officiously been in Tibet to hear what the Tibetan people would say

to my going to Donkia, and finding them supremely indifferent,

returned to be my guide. A month's provision for ten men having

arrived from Dorjiling, I left Yeumtong the following day for Momay

Samdong, the loftiest yak grazing station in Sikkim (Palung being too

cold for yaks), and within a day's journey of the Donkia pass.

The valley remains almost level for several miles, the road

continuing along the east bank of the Lachen. Shoots of stones

descend from the ravines, all of a white fine-grained granite,

stained red with a minute conferva, which has been taken by Himalayan

travellers for red snow;* [Red snow was never found in the Antarctic

regions during Sir James Ross's South Polar voyage; nor do I know any

authentic record of its having been seen in the Himalaya.] a

phenomenon I never saw in Sikkim.

At a fork of the valley several miles above Yeumtong, and below the

great glacier of Chango Khang, the ancient moraines are prodigious,

much exceeding any I have elsewhere seen, both in extent, in the size

of the boulders, and in the height to which the latter are piled on

one another. Many boulders I measured were twenty yards across, and

some even forty; and the chaotic scene they presented baffles all

description: they were scantily clothed with stunted silver firs.

Beyond this, the path crosses the river, and ascends rapidly over a

mile of steeply sloping landslip, composed of angular fragments of

granite, that are constantly falling from above, and are extremely

dangerous. At 14,000 feet, trees and shrubs cease, willow and

honeysuckle being the last; and thence onward the valley is bleak,

open, and stony, with lofty rocky mountains on either side. The south

wind brought a cold drizzling rain, which numbed us, and two of the

lads who had last come up from Dorjiling were seized with a remittent

fever, originally contracted in the hot valleys; luckily we found

some cattle-sheds, in which I left them, with two men to attend

on them.

Momay Samdong is situated in a broad part of the Lachoong valley,

where three streams meet; it is on the west of Chango Khang, and is

six miles south-east of Kinchinjhow, and seven south-west of Donkia:

it is in the same latitude as Palung, but scarcely so lofty. The mean

of fifty-six barometrical observations contemporaneous with Calcutta

makes it 15,362 feet above the sea; nearly the elevation of Lacheepia

(near the Tunkra pass), from which, however, its scenery and

vegetation entirely differ.

I pitched my tent close to a little shed, at the gently sloping base

of a mountain that divided the Lachoong river from a western

tributary. It was a wild and most exposed spot: long stony mountains,

grassy on the base near the river; distant snowy peaks, stupendous

precipices, moraines, glaciers, transported boulders, and rocks

rounded by glacial action, formed the dismal landscape which

everywhere met the view. There was not a bush six inches high, and

the only approach to woody plants were minute creeping willows and

dwarf rhododendrons, with a very few prostrate junipers

and _Ephedra._

The base of the spur was cut into broad flat terraces, composed of

unstratified sand, pebbles, and boulders; the remains, doubtless, of

an enormously thick glacial deposit. The terracing is as difficult to

be accounted for in this valley as in that of Yangma (East Nepal);

both valleys being far too broad, and descending too rapidly to admit

of the hypothesis of their having been blocked up in the lower part,

and the upper filled with large lakes.* [The formation of small

lakes, however, between moraines and the sides of the valleys they

occupy, or between two successively formed moraines (as I have

elsewhere mentioned), will account for very extensive terraced areas

of this kind; and it must be borne in mind that when the Momay valley

was filled with ice, the breadth of its glacier at this point must

have been twelve miles, and it must have extended east and west from

Chango Khang across the main valley, to beyond Donkia. Still the

great moraines are wanting at this particular point, and though

atmospheric action and the rivers have removed perhaps 200 feet of

glacial shingle, they can hardly have destroyed a moraine of rocks,

large enough to block up the valley.] Another tributary falls into

the Lachoong at Momay, which leads eastwards up to an enormous

glacier that descends from Donkia. Snowy mountains rise nearly all

round it: those on its south and east divide Sikkim from the Phari

province in Tibet; those on the north terminate in a forked or cleft

peak, which is a remarkable and conspicuous feature from Momay.

This, which I have called forked Donkia,* [Its elevation by my

observations is about 21,870 feet.] is the termination of a

magnificent amphitheatre of stupendous snow-clad precipices,

continuously upwards of 20,000 feet high, that forms the east flank

of the upper Lachoong. From Donkia top again, the mountains sweep

round to the westward, rising into fingered peaks of extraordinary

magnificence; and thence --still running west--dip to 18,500 feet,

forming the Donkia pass, and rise again as the great mural mass of

Kinchinjhow. This girdle of mountains encloses the head waters of the

Lachoong, which rises in countless streams from its perpetual snows,

glaciers, and small lakes: its north drainage is to the Cholamoo

lakes in Tibet; in which is the source of the Lachen, which flows

round the north base of Kinchinjhow to Kongra Lama.

The bottom of the Lachoong valley at Momay is broad, tolerably level,

grassy, and covered with isolated mounds and ridges that point down

the valley, and are the remains of glacial deposits. It dips suddenly

below this, and some gneiss rocks that rise in its centre are

remarkably _moutonneed_ or rounded, and have boulders perched on

their summits. Though manifestly rounded and grooved by ancient

glaciers, I failed to find scratches on these weather-worn rocks.* [I

have repeatedly, and equally in vain, sought for scratchings on many

of the most conspicuously moutonneed gneiss rocks of Switzerland.

The retention of such markings depends on other circumstances than

the mere hardness of the rock, or amount of aqueous action. What can

be more astonishing than to see these most delicate scratches

retained in all their sharpness on rocks clothed with seaweed and

shells, and exposed at every tide, in the bays of western Scotland!]

The Lachoong is here twelve or fifteen yards wide, and runs over a

pebbly bed, cutting a shallow channel through the deposits, down to

the subjacent rock, which is in some cases scooped out six or eight

feet deep by its waters. I do not doubt that the flatness of the

floor of the Momay valley is caused by the combined action of the

streams that drained the three glaciers which met here; for the

tendency of retiring glaciers is to level the floors of valleys, by

giving an ever-shifting direction to the rivers which drain them, and

which spread detritus in their course. Supposing these glaciers to

have had no terminal moraines, they might still have forced immense

beds of gravel into positions that would dam up lakes between the ice

and the flanks of the valleys, and thus produce much terracing on the

latter.* [We are still very ignorant of many details of ice action,

and especially of the origin of many enormous deposits which are not

true moraines. These, so conspicuous in the lofty Himalayan valleys,

are not less so in those of the Swiss Alps: witness that broad valley

in which Grindelwald village is situated, and which is covered to an

immense depth with angular detritus, moulded into hills and valleys;

also the whole broad open Upper Rhone valley, above the village of

Munster, and below that of Obergestelen. The action of broad glaciers

on gentle slopes is to raise their own beds by the accumulation of

gravel which their lower surface carries and pushes forward. I have

seen small glaciers thus raised 300 feet; leaving little doubt in my

mind that the upper Himalayan valleys were thus choked with deposit

1000 feet thick, of which indeed the proofs remain along the flanks

of the Yangma valley. The denuding and accumulating effects of ice

thus give a contour to mountain valleys, and sculpture their flanks

and floors far more rapidly than sea action, or the elements. After a

very extensive experience of ice in the Antarctic ocean, and in

mountainous countries, I cannot but conclude that very few of our

geologists appreciate the power of ice as a mechanical agent, which

can hardly be over-estimated, whether as glacier, iceberg, or pack

ice, heaping shingle along coasts.We are still very ignorant of many

details of ice action, and especially of the origin of many enormous

deposits which are not true moraines. These, so conspicuous in the

lofty Himalayan valleys, are not less so in those of the Swiss Alps:

witness that broad valley in which Grindelwald village is situated,

and which is covered to an immense depth with angular detritus,

moulded into hills and valleys; also the whole broad open Upper Rhone

valley, above the village of Munster, and below that of Obergestelen.

The action of broad glaciers on gentle slopes is to raise their own

beds by the accumulation of gravel which their lower surface carries

and pushes forward. I have seen small glaciers thus raised 300 feet;

leaving little doubt in my mind that the upper Himalayan valleys were

thus choked with deposit 1000 feet thick, of which indeed the proofs

remain along the flanks of the Yangma valley. The denuding and

accumulating effects of ice thus give a contour to mountain valleys,

and sculpture their flanks and floors far more rapidly than sea

action, or the elements. After a very extensive experience of ice in

the Antarctic ocean, and in mountainous countries, I cannot but

conclude that very few of our geologists appreciate the power of ice

as a mechanical agent, which can hardly be over-estimated, whether as

glacier, iceberg, or pack ice, heaping shingle along coasts.]

On our arrival, we found that a party of buxom, good-natured looking

girls who were tending yaks, were occupying the hut, which, however,

they cheerfully gave up to my people, spreading a black tent close by

for themselves; and next morning they set off with all their effects

packed upon the yaks. The ground was marshy, and covered with

cowslips, _Ranunculus,_ grasses and sedges, _Cyananthus,_ blue

asters, gentians, etc. The spot appearing highly favourable for

observations, I determined to remain here during the equinoctial

month, and put my people on "two-thirds allowance," _i.e.,_ four

pounds of rice daily for three men, allowing them to send down the

valley to cater for what more they could get. The Singtam Soubah was

intensely disgusted with my determination: he accompanied me next day

to the pass, and having exhausted his persuasions, threats, and

warnings about snow, wind, robbers, starvation, and Cheen sepoys,

departed on the 12th for Yeumtong, leaving me truly happy for the

first time since quitting Dorjiling. I had now a prospect of

uninterruptedly following up my pursuits at an elevation little below

that of the summit of Mont Blanc, surrounded by the loftiest

mountains, and perhaps the vastest glaciers on the globe; my

instruments were in perfect order, and I saw around me a curious and

varied flora.

The morning of the 9th of September promised fair, though billowy

clouds were rapidly ascending the valley. To the eastward my

attention was directed to a double rainbow; the upper was an arch of

the usual form, and the lower was the curved illuminated edge of a

bank of cumulus, with the orange hues below. We took the path to the

Donkia pass, fording the river, and ascending in a north-east

direction, along the foot of stony hills that rise at a gradual slope

of 12 degrees to broad unsnowed ridges, 18,000 to 19,000 feet high.

Shallow valleys, glacier-bound at their upper extremities, descend

from the still loftier rearward mountains; and in these occur lakes.

About five miles up, a broad opening on the west leads to Tomo Chamo,

as the eastern summit of Kinchinjhow is called.* [On one occasion I

ascended this valley, which is very broad, flat, and full of lakes at

different elevations; one, at about 17,000 feet elevation is

three-quarters of a mile long, but not deep: no water-plants grew in

it, but there were plenty of others round its margin. I collected, in

the dry bed of a stream near it, a curious white substance like thick

felt, formed of felspathic silt (no doubt the product of glacial

streams) and the siliceous cells of infusoriae. It much resembles the

fossil or meteoric paper of Germany, which is also formed of the

lowest tribes of fresh-water plants, though considered by Ehrenberg

as of animal origin. A vein of granite in the bottom of the valley

had completely altered the character of the gneiss, which contained

veins of jasper and masses of amorphous garnet. Much olivine is found

in the fissures of the gneiss: this feral is very rare in Sikkim, but

I have also seen it in the fissures of the White gneissy granite of

the surrounding heights.] Above this the valley expands very much,

and is stony and desert: stupendous mountains, upwards of 21,000 feet

high, rear themselves on all sides, and the desolation and grandeur

of the scene are unequalled in my experience. The path again crosses

the river (which is split into many channels), and proceeds

northwards, over gravelly terraces and rocks with patches of Scotch

alpine grasses (_Festuca ovina_ and _Poa laxa_), sedges, _Stipa,_

dandelion, _Allardia,_ gentians, _Saussurea,_ and _Astraga1us,_

varied with hard hemispherical mounds of the alsineous plant

mentioned at chapter xxi.

I passed several shallow lakes at 17,500 feet; their banks were green

and marshy, and supported thirty or forty kinds of plants. At the

head of the valley a steep rocky crest, 500 feet high, rises between

two precipitous snowy peaks, and a very fatiguing ascent (at this

elevation) leads to the sharp rocky summit of the Donkia pass, 18,466

feet above the sea by barometer, and 17,866 by boiling-point.

The view on this occasion was obscured by clouds and fogs, except

towards Tibet, in which direction it was magnificent; but as I

afterwards twice ascended this pass, and also crossed it, I shall

here bring together all the particulars I noted.

The Tibetan view, from its novelty, extent, and singularity, demands

the first notice: the Cholamoo lake lay 1500 feet below me, at the

bottom of a rapid and rocky descent; it was a blue sheet of water,

three or four miles from north to south, and one and a half broad,

hemmed in by rounded spurs from Kinchinjhow on one side, and from

Donkia on the other: the Lachen flowed from its northern extremity,

and turning westward, entered a broad barren valley, bounded on the

north by red stony mountains, called Bhomtso, which I saw from Kongra

Lama, and ascended with Dr. Campbell in the October following: though

18,000 to 19,000 feet high, these mountains were wholly unsnowed.

Beyond this range lay the broad valley of the Arun, and in the

extreme north-west distance, to the north of Nepal, were some immense

snowy mountains, reduced to mere specks on the horizon. The valley of

the Arun was bounded on the north by very precipitous black rocky

mountains, sprinkled with snow; beyond these again, from north to

north-west, snow-topped range rose over range in the clear purple

distance. The nearer of these was the Kiang-lah, which forms the axis

or water-shed of this meridian; its south drainage being to the Arun

river, and its north to the Yaru-tsampu: it appeared forty to fifty

miles off, and of great mean elevation (20,000 feet) the vast snowy

mountains that rose beyond it were, I was assured, beyond the Yaru,

in the salt lake country.* [This salt country was described to me as

enormously lofty, perfectly sterile, and fourteen days' march for

loaded men and sheep from Jigatzi: there is no pasture for yaks,

whose feet are cut by the rocks. The salt is dug (so they express it)

from the margin of lakes; as is the carbonate of soda, "Pleu" of the

Tibetans.] A spur from Chomiomo cut off the view to the southward of

north-west, and one from Donkia concealed all to the east of north.

Illustration--TIBET AND CHOLAMOO LAKE FROM THE SUMMIT OF THE DONKIA

PASS, LOOKING NORTH-WEST.

The most remarkable features of this landscape were its enormous

elevation, and its colours and contrast to the black, rugged, and

snowy Himalaya of Sikkim. All the mountains between Donkia pass and

the Arun were comparatively gently sloped, and of a yellow red

colour, rising and falling in long undulations like dunes, 2000 to

3000 feet above the mean level of the Arun valley, and perfectly bare

of perpetual snow or glaciers. Rocks everywhere broke out on their

flanks, and often along their tops, but the general contour of that

immense area was very open and undulating, like the great ranges of

Central Asia, described by MM. Huc and Gabet. Beyond this again, the

mountains were rugged, often rising into peaks which, from the angles

I took here, and subsequently at Bhomtso, cannot be below 24,000

feet, and are probably much higher. The most lofty mountains were on

the range north of Nepal, not less than 120 miles distant, and which,

though heavily snowed, were below the horizon of Donkia pass.

Cholamoo lake lay in a broad, scantily grassed, sandy and stony

valley; snow-beds, rocks, and glaciers dipped abruptly towards its

head, but on its west bank a lofty brick-red spur sloped upwards from

it, conspicuously cut into terraces for several hundred feet above

its waters.

Kambajong, the chief Tibetan village near this, after Phari and

Giantchi, is situated on the Arun (called in Tibet "Chomachoo"), on

the road from Sikkim to Jigatzi* [I have adopted the simplest mode of

spelling this name that I could find, and omitted the zong or jong,

which means fort, and generally terminates it. I think it would not

be difficult to enumerate fully a dozen ways of spelling the word, of

which Shigatzi, Digarchi, and Djigatzi are the most common.

The Tibetans tell me that they cross two passes after leaving Donkia,

or Kongra Lama, en route for Jigatzi, on both of which they suffer

from headaches and difficulty of breathing; one is over the Kambajong

range; the other, much loftier, is over that of Kiang-lah: as they do

not compliin of Bhomtso, which is also crossed, and is 18,500 feet,

the others may be very lofty indeed. The distance from Donkia pass to

Jigatzi is said to be ten days' journey for loaded yaks. Now,

according to Turner's observations (evidently taken with great care)

that capital is in latitude 29 degrees 4 minutes 20 seconds north, or

only seventy miles north of Donkia; and as the yak travels at the

rate of sixteen miles a day, the country must be extraordinarily

rugged, or the valleys tortuous. Turner took eight or nine days on

his journey from Phari to Teshoo Loombo, a distance of only eighty

miles; yet he is quoted as an authority for the fact of Tibet being a

plain! he certainly crossed an undulating country, probably 16,OOO to

17,000 feet high; a continuation eastwards of the Cholamoo features,

and part of the same mountain range that connects Chumulari and

Donkia: he had always lofty mountains in eight, and rugged ones on

either side, after he had entered the Painomchoo valley. It is a

remarkable and significant fact that Turner never appears to have

seen Chumulari after having passed it, nor Donkia, Kinchinjhow, or

Kinchinjunga at any time.] and Teshoo Loombo. I did not see it, but a

long, stony mountain range above the town is very conspicuous, its

sides presenting an interrupted line of cliffs, resembling the

port-holes of a ship: some fresh-fallen snow lay at the base, but

none at the top, which was probably 18,500 feet high. The banks of

the Arun are thence inhabited at intervals all the way to Tingre,

where it enters Nepal.

Donkia rises to the eastward of the pass, but its top is not visible.

I ascended (over loose rocks) to between 19,000 and 20,000 feet, and

reached vast masses of blue ribboned ice, capping the ridges, but

obtained no further prospect. To the west, the beetling east summit

of Kinchinjhow rises at two miles distance, 3000 to 4000 feet above

the pass. A little south of it, and north of Chango Khang, the view

extends through a gap in the Sebolah range, across the valley of the

Lachen, to Kinchinjunga, distant forty-two miles. The monarch of

mountains looked quite small and low from this point, and it was

difficult to believe it was 10,000 feet more lofty than my position.

I repeatedly looked from it to the high Tibetan mountains in the

extreme north-west distance, and was more than ever struck with the

apparently immense distance, and consequent altitude of the latter:

I put, however, no reliance on such estimates.

To the south the eye wandered down the valley of the Lachoong to the

mountains of the Chola range, which appear so lofty from Dorjiling,

but from here are sunk far below the horizon: on comparing these with

the northern landscape, the wonderful difference between their

respective snow-levels, amounting to fully 5000 feet, was very

apparent. South-east the stupendous snowy amphitheatre formed by the

flank of Donkia was a magnificent spectacle.

This wonderful view forcibly impressed me with the fact, that all

eye-estimates in mountainous countries are utterly fallacious, if not

corrected by study and experience. I had been led to believe that

from Donkia pass the whole country of Tibet sloped away in descending

steppes to the Tsampu, and was more or less of a plain; and could I

have trusted my eyes only, I should have confirmed this assertion so

far as the slope was concerned. When, however, the levelled

theodolite was directed to the distance, the reverse was found to be

the case. Unsnowed and apparently low mountains touched the horizon

line of the telescope; which proves that, if only 37 miles off, they

must, from the dip of the horizon, be at least 1000 feet higher than

the observer's position. The same infallible guide cuts off

mountain-tops and deeply snowed ridges, which to the unaided eye

appear far lower than the point from which they are viewed; but

which, from the quantity of snow on them, must be many thousand feet

higher, and, from the angle they subtend in the instrument, must be

at an immense distance. The want of refraction to lift the horizon,

the astonishing precision of the outlines, and the brilliancy of the

images of mountains reduced by distance to mere specks, are all

circumstances tending to depress them to appearance. The absence of

trees, houses, and familiar objects to assist the eye in the

appreciation of distance, throws back the whole landscape; which,

seen through the rarified atmosphere of 18,500 feet, looks as if

diminished by being surveyed through the wrong end of a telescope.

A few rude cairns were erected on the crest of the pass, covered with

wands, red banners, and votive offerings of rags. I found a fine slab

of slate, inscribed with the Tibetan characters, "Om Mani Padmi hom,"

which Meepo allowed me to take away, as the reward of my exertions.

The ridge is wholly formed of angular blocks of white gneissy

granite, split by frost.* [It was not a proper granite, but a highly

metamorphic felspathic gneiss, with very little mica; being, I

suspect, a gneiss which by metamorphic action was almost remolten

into granite: the lamination was obscure, and marked by faint

undulating lines of mica; it cleaves at all angles, but most

generally along fissures with highly polished undulated black

surfaces. The strike of the same rock near at hand was north-west,

and dip north-east, at various angles.] There was no snow on the pass

itself, but deep drifts and glaciers descended in hollows on the

north side, to 17,000 feet. The rounded northern red shoulder of

Kinchinjhow by Cholamoo lake, apparently 19,000 feet high, was quite

bare, and, as I have said, I ascended Donkia to upwards of 19,000

feet before I found the rocks crusted with ice,* [Snow, transformed

into ice throughout its whole mass: in short, glacial ice in all

physical characters.] and the ground wholly frozen. I assume,

therefore, that 19,000 feet at this spot is not below the mean level

at which all the snow melts that falls on a fair exposure to the

south: this probably coincides with a mean temperature of 20 degrees.

Forty miles further north (in Tibet) the same line is probably at

20,000 feet; for there much less snow falls, and much more melts in

proportion.* [Two secondary considerations materially affecting the

melting of snow, and hence exerting a material influence on the

elevation of the snow-line, appear to me never to have been

sufficiently dwelt upon. Both, however, bear directly upon the great

elevation of the snow-line in Tibet. From the imperfect transmission

of the heating rays of the sun through films of water, which transmit

perfectly the luminous rays, it follows that the direct effects of

the rays, in clear sunshine, are very different at equal elevations

of the moist outer and dry inner Himalaya. Secondly, naked rock and

soil absorb much more heat than surfaces covered with vegetation, and

this heat again radiated is infinitely more rapidly absorbed by snow

(or other white surfaces) than the direct heat of the sun's rays is.

Hence, at equal elevations the ground heats sooner, and the snow is

more exposed to the heat thus radiated in arid Tibet, than in the

wooded and grassed mountains of Sikkim.] From the elevation of about

19,300 feet, which I attained on Donkia, I saw a fine illustration of

that atmospheric phenomenon called the "spectre of the Brocken," my

own shadow being projected on a mass of thin mist that rose above the

tremendous precipices over which I hung. My head was surrounded with

a brilliant circular glory or rainbow.* [Probably caused by spiculae

of ice floating in the atmosphere, the lateral surfaces of which

would then have an uniform inclination of 60 degrees: this, according

to the observations of Mariotte, Venturi, and Fraunhoefer being the

angle necessary for the formation of halos.]

The temperature of the Donkia pass is much higher than might be

anticipated from its great elevation, and from the fact of its being

always bitterly cold to the feelings. This is no doubt due to the

warmth of the ascending currents, and to the heat evolved during the

condensation of their vapours. I took the following observations:--

Sept. 9, 1.30-3.30 p.m.: Temp. 41.8 degrees, D.P. 30.3 degrees,

Difference 11.5 degrees, Tension 0.1876, Humidity 0.665.

Sept. 27 1.15-3.15 p.m.: Temp. 49.2 degrees, D.P. 32.6 degrees,

Difference 16.6 degrees, Tension 0.2037, Humidity 0.560.

Oct. 19, 3.00-3.30 p.m.: Temp. 40.1 degrees, D.P. 25.0 degrees,

Difference 15.1 degrees, Tension 0.1551, Humidity 0.585.

The first and last of these temperatures were respectively 42.3

degrees and 46.4 degrees lower than Calcutta, which, with the proper

deduction for latitude, allows 508 and 460 feet as equivalent to 1

degree Fahr. I left a minimum thermometer on the summit on the 9th of

September, and removed it on the 27th, but it had been lifted and

turned over by the action of the frost and snow on the loose rocks

amongst which I had placed it; the latter appearing to have been

completely shifted. Fortunately, the instrument escaped unhurt, with

the index at 28 degrees.

A violent southerly wind, with a scud of mist, and sometimes snow,

always blew over the pass: but we found shelter on the north face,

where I twice kindled a fire, and boiled my thermometers.* [On the

9th of September the boiling-point was 181.3 degrees, and on the

27th, 181.2 degrees. In both observations, I believe the kettle

communicated a higher temperature to the thermometer than that of the

water, for the elevations deduced are far too low.] On one occasion I

felt the pulses of my party several times during two hours' repose

(without eating); the mean of eight persons was 105 degrees, the

extremes being 92 degrees and 120 degrees, and my own 108 degrees.

One flowering plant ascends to the summit; the alsinaceous one

mentioned at chapter xxi. The Fescue grass, a little fern

(_Woodsia_), and a _Saussurea_* [A pink-flowered woolly _Saussurea,_

and _Delphinium qlaciale,_ are two of the most lofty plants; both

being commonly found from 17,500 to 18,000 feet.] ascend very near

the summit, and several lichens grow on the top, as _Cladonia

vermicularis,_ the yellow _Lecidea geographica,_ and the orange

_L. miniata_;* [This is one of the most Arctic, Antarctic, and

universally diffused plants. The other lichens were _Lecidea

atro-alba, oreina, elegans,_ and _chlorophana,_ all alpine European

and Arctic species. At 17,000 feet occur _Lecanora ventosa, physodes,

candelaria, sordida, atra,_ and the beautiful Swiss _L. chrysoleuca,_

also European species.] also some barren mosses. At 18,300 feet, I

found on one stone only a fine Scotch lichen, a species of

_Gyrophora,_ the _"tripe de roche"_ of Arctic voyagers, and the food

of the Canadian hunters; it is also abundant on the Scotch alps.

Before leaving, I took one more long look at the boundless prospect;

and, now that its important details were secured, I had leisure to

reflect on the impression it produced. There is no loftier country on

the globe than that embraced by this view, and no more howling

wilderness; well might the Singtam Soubah and every Tibetan describe

it as the loftiest, coldest, windiest, and most barren country in the

world. Were it buried in everlasting snows, or burnt by a tropical

sun, it might still be as utterly sterile; but with such sterility I

had long been familiar. Here the colourings are those of the fiery

desert or volcanic island, while the climate is that of the poles.

Never, in the course of all my wanderings, had my eye rested on a

scene so dreary and inhospitable. The "cities of the plain" lie sunk

in no more death-like sea than Cholamoo lake, nor are the tombs of

Petra hewn in more desolate cliffs than those which flank the valley

of the Tibetan Arun.

On our return my pony strained his shoulder amongst the rocks; as a

remedy, the Lachoong Phipun plunged a lancet into the muscle, and

giving me his own animal, rode mine down.* [These animals, called

Tanghan, are wonderfully strong and enduring; they are never shod,

and the hoof often cracks, and they become pigeon-toed: they are

frequently blind of one eye, when they are called "zemik" (blind

ones), but this is thought no great defect. They average 5 pounds to

10 pounds for a good animal in Tibet; and the best fetch 40 pounds to

50 pounds in the plains of India, where they become acclimated and

thrive well. Giantchi (Jhansi-jeung of Turner) is the best mart for

them in this part of Tibet, where some breeds fetch very high prices.

The Tibetans give the foals of value messes of pig's blood and raw

liver, which they devour greedily, and it is said to strengthen them

wonderfully; the custom is, I believe, general in central Asia.

Humboldt (Pens. Nar. iv. p. 320) describes the horses of Caraccas as

occasionally eating salt meat.] It drizzled and sleeted all the way,

and was dark before we arrived at the tent.

At night the Tibetan dogs are let loose, when they howl dismally: on

one occasion they robbed me of all my meat, a fine piece of yak's

flesh. The yaks are also troublesome, and bad sleepers; they used to

try to effect an entrance into my tent, pushing their muzzles under

the flaps at the bottom, and awakening me with a snort and moist hot

blast. Before the second night I built a turf wall round the tent;

and in future slept with a heavy tripod by my side, to poke

at intruders.