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.