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.
Birds flock to the grass about Momay; larks, finches, warblers, abundance of sparrows, feeding on the yak-droppings, and occasionally the hoopoe; waders, cormorants, and wild ducks were sometimes seen in the streams, but most of them were migrating south. The yaks are driven out to pasture at sunrise, and home at sunset, till the middle of the month, when they return to Yeumtong. All their droppings are removed from near the tents, and piled in heaps; as these animals, unlike their masters, will not sleep amid such dirt. These heaps swarm with the maggots of two large flies, a yellow and black, affording abundant food to red-legged crows, ravens, and swallows. Butterflies are rare; the few are mostly Colias, Hipparchia, Polyommatus, and Melitaea; these I have seen feeding at 17,000 feet; when found higher, they have generally been carried up by currents. Of beetles, an Aphodeus, in yak-droppings, and an Elaphrus, a predaceous genus inhabiting swamps, are almost the only ones I saw. The wild quadrupeds are huge sheep, in flocks of fifty, the Ovis Ammon called "Gnow." I never shot one, not having time to pursue them for they were very seldom seen, and always at great elevations. The larger marmot is common, and I found the horns of the "Tchiru" antelope. Neither the wild horse, fox, hare, nor tailless rat, cross the Donkia pass. White clover, shepherd's purse, dock, plantain, and chickweed, are imported here by yaks; but the common Prunella of Europe is wild, and so is a groundsel like Senecio Jacobaea, Ranunculus, Sibbaldia, and 200 other plants. The grasses are numerous; they belong chiefly to Poa, Festuca, Stipa, and other European genera.
I repeatedly attempted to ascend both Kinchinjhow and Donkia from Momay, and generally reached from 18,000 to 19,000 feet, but never much higher.* [An elevation of 20,000 and perhaps 22,000 feet might, I should think, easily be attained by practice, in Tibet, north of Sikkim.] The observations taken on these excursions are sufficiently illustrated by those of Donkia pass: they served chiefly to perfect my map, measure the surrounding peaks, and determine the elevation reached by plants; all of which were slow operations, the weather of this month being so bad that I rarely returned dry to my tent; fog and drizzle, if not sleet and snow, coming on during every day, without exception.
I made frequent excursions to the great glacier of Kinchinjhow. Its valley is about four miles long, broad and flat: Chango-khang* [The elevation of this mountain is about 20,560 feet, by the mean of several observations taken from surrounding localities.] rears its blue and white cliffs 4,500 feet above its west flank, and throws down avalanches of stones and snow into the valley. Hot springs* [Supposing the mean temperature of the air at the elevation of the Momay springs to be 26 degrees or 28 degrees, which may be approximately assumed, and that, as some suppose, the heat of thermal springs is due to the internal temperature of the globe; then according to the law of increment of heat in descending (of 1 degree for fifty feet) we should find the temperature of 110 degrees at a depth of 4,100 feet, or at 11,900 feet above the level of the sea. Direct experiment with internal heat has not, however, been carried beyond 2000 feet below the surface, and as the ratio of increment diminishes with the depth, that above assigned to the temperature of 110 degrees is no doubt much too little. The Momay springs more probably owe their temperature to chemical decomposition of sulphurets of metals. I found pyrites in Tibet on the north flank of the mountain Kinchinjhow, in limestones asasociated with shales.] burst from the ground near some granite rocks on its floor, about 16,000 feet above the sea, and only a mile below the glacier, and the water collects in pools: its temperature is 110 degrees, and in places 116 degrees, or 4 degrees hotter than that of the Yeumtong hot-springs, though 4000 feet higher, and of precisely the same character. A Barbarea and some other plants make the neighbourhood of the hot-springs a little oasis, and the large marmot is common, uttering its sharp, chirping squeak.
The terminal moraine is about 500 feet high, quite barren, and thrown obliquely across the valley, from north-east to south-west, completely hiding the glacier. From its top successive smaller parallel ridges (indicating the periodic retirements of the glacier) lead down to the ice, which must have sunk several hundred feet. This glacier descends from Kinchinjhow, the huge cliff of whose eastern extremity dips into it. The surface, less than half a mile wide, is exceedingly undulated, and covered with large pools of water, ninety feet deep, and beds of snow, and is deeply corroded; gigantic blocks are perched on pinnacles of ice on its surface, and the gravel cones* [For a description of this curious phenomenon, which has been illustrated by Agassiz, see "Forbes's Alps," p. 26 and 347.] are often twenty feet high. The crevassing so conspicuous on the Swiss glaciers is not so regular on this, and the surface appears more like a troubled ocean; due, no doubt, to the copious rain and snow-falls throughout the summer, and the corroding power of wet fogs. The substance of the ice is ribboned, dirt-bands are seen from above to form long loops on some parts, and the lateral moraines, like the terminal, are high above the surface. These notes, made previous to reading Professor Forbes's travels in the Alps, sufficiently show that perpetual snow, whether as ice or glacier, obeys the same laws in India as in Europe; and I have no remarks to offer on the structure of glaciers, that are not well illustrated and explained in the abovementioned admirable work.
Its average slope for a mile above the terminal moraines was less than 5 degrees, and the height of its surface above the sea 16,500 feet by boiling-point; the thickness of its ice probably 400 feet. Between the moraine and the west flank of the valley is a large lake, with terraced banks, whose bottom (covered with fine felspathic silt) is several hundred feet above that of the valley; it is half a mile long, and a quarter broad, and fed partly by glaciers of the second order on Chango-khang and Sebolah, and partly by filtration through the lateral moraine.
Illustration—GNEISS-BLOCK WITH GRANITE BANDS, ON THE KINCHINJHOW
GLACIER.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Donkia glaciers — Moraines — Dome of ice — Honey-combed surface —
Rocks of Donkia — Metamorphic action of granite veins — Accident to
instruments — Sebolah pass — Bees, and May-flies — View —
Temperature — Pulses of party — Lamas and travellers at Momay —
Weather and climate — Dr. Campbell leaves Dorjiling for Sikkim —
Leave Momay — Yeumtong — Lachoong — Retardation of vegetation at
low elevations — Choongtam — Landslips and debacle — Meet Dr.
Campbell — Motives for his journey — Second visit to Lachen valley
— Autumnal tints — Red currants — Lachen Phipun — Tungu —
Scenery — Animals — Poisonous rhododendrons — Fire-wood — Palung
— Elevations — Sitong — Kongra Lama — Tibetans — Enter Tibet —
Desolate scenery — Plants — Animals — Geology — Cholamoo lakes —
Antelopes — Return to Yeumtso — Dr. Campbell lost — Extreme cold
— Headaches — Tibetan Dingpun and guard — Arms and accoutrements
— Temperature of Yeumtso — Migratory birds — Visit of Dingpun —
Yeumtso lakes.
On the 20th of September I ascended to the great Donkia glaciers, east of Momay; the valley is much longer than that leading to the Kinchinjhow glacier, and at 16,000 or 17,000 feet elevation, containing four marshes or lakes, alternating with as many transverse moraines that have dammed the river. These moraines seem in some cases to have been deposited where rocks in the bed of the valley obstructed the downward progress of the ancient glacier; hence, when this latter finally retired, it rested at these obstructions, and accumulated there great deposits, which do not cross the valley, but project from each side obliquely into it. The rocks in situ on the floor of the valley are all moutonneed and polished on the top, sides, and face looking up the valley, but are rugged on that looking down it: gigantic blocks are poised on some. The lowest of the ancient moraines completely crosses the river, which finds, its way between the boulders.
Under the red cliff of Forked Donkia the valley becomes very broad, bare, and gravelly, with a confusion of moraines, and turns more northwards. At the angle, the present terminal moraine rises like a mountain (I assumed it to be about 800 feet high),* [This is the largest and longest terminal moraine backed by an existing glacier that I examined with care: I doubt its being so high as the moraine of the Allalein glacier below the Mat-maark sea in the Sachs valley (Valais, Switzerland); but it is impossible to compare such objects from memory: the Donkia one was much the most uniform in height.] and crosses the valley from N.N.E. to S.S.W. From the summit, which rises above the level of the glacier, and from which I assume its present retirement, a most striking scene opened. The ice filling an immense basin, several miles broad and long, formed a low dome,* [This convexity of the ice is particularly alluded to by Forbes ("Travels in the Alps," p.386), as the "renflement" of Rendu and "surface bombee" of Agassiz, and is attributed to the effects of hydrostatic pressure tending to press the lower layers of ice upwards to the surface. My own impression at the time was, that the convexity of the surface of the Donkia glacier was due to a subjacent mountain spur running south from Donkia itself. I know, however, far too little of the topography of this glacier to advance such a conjecture with any confidence. In this case, as in all similar ones, broad expanses being covered to an enormous depth with ice, the surface of the latter must in some degree be modified by the ridges and valleys it conceals. The typical "surface bombee," which is conspicuous in the Himalaya glaciers, I was wont (in my ignorance of the mechanical laws of glaciers) to attribute to the more rapid melting of the edges of the glacier by the radiated heat of its lateral moraines and of the flanks of the valley that it occupies.] with Forked Donkia on the west, and a serried range of rusty-red scarped mountains, 20,000 feet high on the north and east, separating large tributary glaciers. Other still loftier tops of Donkia appeared behind these, upwards of 22,000 feet high, but I could not recognise the true summit (23,176 feet). The surface was very rugged, and so deeply honey-combed that the foot often sank from six to eight inches in crisp wet ice. I proceeded a mile on it, with much more difficulty than on any Swiss glacier: this was owing to the elevation, and the corrosion of the surface into pits and pools of water; the crevasses being but few and distant. I saw no dirt-bands on looking down upon it from a point I attained under the red cliff of Forked Donkia, at an elevation of 18,307 feet by barometer, and 18,597 by boiling-point. The weather was very cold, the thermometer fell from 41 degrees to 34 degrees, and it snowed heavily after 3 p.m.
The strike of all the rocks (gneiss with granite veins) seemed to be north-east, and dip north-west 30 degrees. Such also were the strike and dip on another spur from Donkia, north of this, which I ascended to 19,000 feet, on the 26th of September: it abutted on the scarped precipices, 3000 feet high, of that mountain. I had been attracted to the spot by its bright orange-red colour, which I found to be caused by peroxide of iron. The highly crystalline nature of the rocks, at these great elevations, is due to the action of veins of fine-grained granite, which sometimes alter the gneiss to such an extent that it appears as if fused into a fine granite, with distinct crystals of quartz and felspar; the most quartzy layers are then roughly crystallized into prisms, or their particles are aggregated into spheres composed of concentric layers of radiating crystals, as is often seen in agates. The rearrangement of the mineral constituents by heat goes on here just as in trap, cavities filled with crystals being formed in rocks exposed to great heat and pressure. Where mica abounds, it becomes black and metallic; and the aluminous matter is crystallised in the form of garnets.
Illustration—SUMMIT OF FORKED DONKIA, AND "GOA" ANTELOPES.
At these great heights the weather was never fine for more than an hour at a time, and a driving sleet followed by thick snow drove me down on both these occasions. Another time I ascended a third spur from this great mountain, and was overtaken by a heavy gale and thunderstorm, the latter is a rare phenomenon: it blew down my tripod and instruments which I had thought securely Propped with stones, and the thermometers were broken, but fortunately not the barometer. On picking up the latter, which lay with its top down the hill, a large bubble of air appeared, which I passed up and down the tube, and then allowed to escape; when I heard a rattling of broken glass in the cistern. Having another barometer* [This barometer (one of Newman's portable instruments) I have now at Kew: it was compared with the Royal Society's standard before leaving England; and varied according to comparisons made with the Calcutta standard 0.012 during its travels; on leaving Calcutta its error was 0; and on arriving in England, by the standard of the Royal Society, +.004. I have given in the Appendix some remarks on the use of these barometers, which (though they have obvious defects), are less liable to derangement, far more portable, and stand much heavier shocks than those of any other construction with which I am familiar.] at my tent, I hastened to ascertain by comparison whether the instrument which had travelled with me from England, and taken so many thousand observations, was seriously damaged: to my delight an error of 0.020 was all I could detect at Momay and all other lower stations. On my return to Dorjiling in December, I took it to pieces, and found the lower part of the bulb of the attached thermometer broken off, and floating on the mercury. Having quite expected this, I always checked the observations of the attached thermometer by another, but—how, it is not easy to say—the broken one invariably gave a correct temperature.
Illustration—VIEW FROM AN ELEVATION OF 18,000 FEET OF THE EAST TOP
OF KINCHINJHOW, AND OF TIBET, OVER THE RIDGE THAT CONNECTS IT WITH
DONKIA. WILD SHEEP (OVIS AMMON) IN THE FOREGROUND.
The Kinchinjhow spurs are not accessible to so great an elevation as those of Donkia, but they afford finer views over Tibet, across the ridge connecting Kinchinjow with Donkia.
Broad summits here, as on the opposite side of the valley, are quite bare of snow at 18,000 feet, though where they project as sloping hog-backed spurs from the parent mountain, the snows of the latter roll down on them and form glacial caps, the reverse of glaciers in valleys, but which overflow, as it were, on all sides of the slopes, and are ribboned* [The convexity of the curves, however, seems to be upwards. Such reversed glaciers, ending abruptly on broad stony shoulders quite free of snow, should on no account be taken as indicating the lower limit of perpetual snow.] and crevassed.
On the 18th of September I ascended the range which divides the Lachen from the Lachoong valley, to the Sebolah pass, a very sharp ridge of gneiss, striking north-west and dipping north-east, which runs south from Kinchinjhow to Chango-khang. A yak-track led across the Kinchinjhow glacier, along the bank of the lake, and thence westward up a very steep spur, on which was much glacial ice and snow, but few plants above 16,000 feet. At nearly 17,000 feet I passed two small lakes, on the banks of one of which I found bees, a May-fly (Ephemera) and gnat; the two latter bred on stones in the water, which (the day being fine) had a temperature of 53 degrees, while that of the large lake at the glacier, 1000 feet lower, was only 39 degrees.
The view from the summit commands the whole castellated front of Kinchinjhow, the sweep of the Donkia cliffs to the east, Chango-khang's blunt cone of ribbed snow* [This ridging or furrowing of steep snow-beds is explained at vol. i, chapter x.] over head, while to the west, across the grassy Palung dunes rise Chomiomo, the Thlonok mountains, and Kinchinjunga in the distance.* [The latter bore 241 degrees 30 minutes; it was distant about thirty-four miles, and subtended an angle of 3 degrees 2 minutes 30 seconds. The rocks on its north flanks were all black, while those forming the upper 10,000 feet of the south face were white: hence, the top is probably granite, overlaid by the gneiss on the north.] The Palung plains, now yellow with withered grass, were the most curious part of the view: hemmed in by this range which rises 2000 feet above them, and by the Lachen hills on the east, they appeared a dead level, from which Kinchinjhow reared its head, like an island from the ocean.* [It is impossible to contemplate the abrupt flanks of all these lofty mountains, without contrasting them with the sloping outlines that prevail in the southern parts of Sikkim. All such precipices are, I have no doubt, the results of sea action; and all posterior influence of sub-aerial action, aqueous or glacial, tends to wear these precipices into slopes, to fill up valleys and to level mountains. Of all such influences heavy rain-falls and a luxuriant vegetation are probably the most active; and these features are characteristic of the lower valleys of Sikkim, which are consequently exposed to very different conditions of wear and tear from those which prevail on these loftier rearward ranges.] The black tents of the Tibetans were still there, but the flocks were gone. The broad fosse-like valley of the Chachoo was at my feet, with the river winding along its bottom, and its flanks dotted with black juniper bushes.
The temperature at this elevation, between 1 and 3 p.m., varied from 38 degrees to 59 degrees; the mean being 46.5 degrees, with the dew-point 34.6 degrees. The height I made 17,585 feet by barometer, and 17,517 by boiling-point. I tried the pulses of eight, persons after two hours' rest; they varied from 80 to 112, my own being 104. As usual at these heights, all the party were suffering from giddiness and headaches.
Throughout September various parties passed my tent at Momay, generally Lamas or traders: the former, wrapped in blankets, wearing scarlet and gilt mitres, usually rode grunting yaks, which were sometimes led by a slave-boy or a mahogany-faced nun, with a broad yellow sheep-skin cap with flaps over her ears, short petticoats, and striped boots. The domestic utensils, pots, pans, and bamboos of butter, tea-churn, bellows, stools, books, and sacred implements, usually hung rattling on all sides of his holiness, and a sumpter yak carried the tents and mats for sleeping. On several occasions large parties of traders, with thirty or forty yaks* [About 600 loaded yaks are said to cross the Donkia pass annually.] laden with planks, passed, and occasionally a shepherd with Tibet sheep, goats, and ponies. I questioned many of these travellers about the courses of the Tibetan rivers; they all agreed* [One lad only, declared that the Kambajong river flowed north-west to Dobtah and Sarrh, and thence turned north to the Yaru; but all Campbell's itineraries, as well as mine, make the Dobtah lake drain into the Chomachoo, north of Wallanchoon; which latter river the Nepalese also affirm flows into Nepal, as the Arun. The Lachen and Lachoong Phipuns both insisted on this, naming to me the principal towns on the way south-west from Kambajong along the river to Tingri Maidan, via Tashirukpa Chait, which is north of Wallanchoon pass.] in stating the Kambajong or Chomachoo liver, north of the Lachen, to be the Arun of Nepal, and that it rose near the Ramchoo lake (of Turner's route). The lake itself discharges either into the Arun, or into the Painomchoo (flowing to the Yaru); but this point I could never satisfactorily ascertain.
The weather at Momay, during September, was generally bad after 11 a.m.: little snow or rain fell, but thin mists and drizzle prevailed; less than one inch and a half of rain was collected, though upwards of eleven fell at Calcutta, and rather more at Dorjiling. The mornings were sometimes fine, cold, and sunny, with a north wind which had blown down the valley all night, and till 9 a.m., when the south-east wind, with fog, came on. Throughout the day a north current blew above the southern; and when the mist was thin; the air sparkled with spiculae of snow, caused by the cold dry upper current condensing the vapours of the lower. This southern current passes over the tops of the loftiest mountains, ascending to 24,000 feet, and discharging frequent showers in Tibet, as far north as Jigatzi, where, however, violent dry easterly gales are the most prevalent.
The equinoctial gales set in on the 21st, with a falling barometer, and sleet at night; on the 23rd and 24th it snowed heavily, and being unable to light a fire at the entrance of my tent, I spent two wretched days, taking observations; on the 25th it cleared, and the snow soon melted. Frosty nights succeeded, but the thermometer only fell to 31 degrees once during the month, and the maximum once rose to 62.5 degrees. The mean temperature from the 9th to the 30th September was 41.6 degrees,* [The result of fifty-six comparative observations between Calcutta and Momay, give 40.6 degrees difference, which, after corrections, allows 1 degree Fahr. for every 438 feet of ascent.] which coincided with that of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.; the mean maximum, 52.2 degrees, minimum, 34.7 degrees, and consequent range, 17.5 degrees.* [At Dorjiling the September range is only 9.5 degrees; and at Calcutta 10 degrees.] On seven nights the radiating thermometer fell much below the temperature of the air, the mean being 10.5 degrees and maximum 14.2 degrees; and on seven mornings the sun heated the black-bulb thermometer considerably, on the mean to 62.6 degrees above the air; maximum 75.2 degrees, and minimum, 43 degrees. The greatest heat of the day occurred at noon: the most rapid rise of temperature (5 degrees) between 8 and 9 a.m., and the greatest fall (5.5 degrees), between 3 and 4 p.m. A sunk thermometer fell from 52.5 degrees to 51.5 degrees between the 11th and 14th, when I was obliged to remove the thermometer owing to the accident mentioned above. The mercury in the barometer rose and fell contemporaneously with that at Calcutta and Dorjiling, but the amount of tide was considerably less, and, as is usual during the equinoctial month, on some days it scarcely moved, whilst on others it rose and fell rapidly. The tide amounted to 0.062 of an inch.
On the 28th of the month the Singtam Soubah came up from Yeumtong, to request leave to depart for his home, on account of his wife's illness; and to inform me that Dr. Campbell had left Dorjiling, accompanied (in compliance with the Rajah's orders) by the Tchebu Lama. I therefore left Momay on the 30th, to meet him at Choongtam, arriving at Yeumtong the same night, amid heavy rain and sleet.
Autumnal tints reigned at Yeumtong, and the flowers had disappeared from its heath-like flat; a small eatable cherry with a wrinkled stone was ripe, and acceptable in a country so destitute of fruit.* [The absence of Vaccinia (whortleberries and cranberries) and eatable Rubi (brambles) in the alpine regions of the Himalaya is very remarkable, and they are not replaced by any substitute. With regard to Vaccinium, this is the more anomalous, as several species grow in the temperate regions of Sikkim.] Thence I descended to Lachoong, on the 1st of October, again through heavy rain, the snow lying on the Tunkra mountain at 14,000 feet. The larch was shedding its leaves, which turn red before they fall; but the annual vegetation was much behind that at 14,000 feet, and so many late flowerers, such as Umbelliferae and Compositae, had come into blossom, that the place still looked gay and green: the blue climbing gentian (Crawfurdia) now adorned the bushes; this plant would be a great acquisition in English gardens. A Polygonum still in flower here, was in ripe fruit near Momay, 6000 feet higher up the valley.
On the following day I made a long and very fatiguing march to Choongtam, but the coolies were not all able to accomplish it. The backwardness of the flora in descending was even more conspicuous than on the previous day: the jungles, at 7000 feet, being gay with a handsome Cucurbitaceous plant. Crossing the Lachoong cane-bridge, I paid the tribute of a sigh to the memory of my poor dog, and reached my old camping-ground at Choongtam by 10 p.m., having been marching rapidly for twelve hours. My bed and tent came up two hours later, and not before the leeches and mosquitos had taxed me severely. On the 4th of October I heard the nightingale for the first time this season.
Expecting Dr. Campbell on the following morning, I proceeded down the river to meet him: the whole valley was buried under a torrent or debacle of mud, shingle, and boulders, and for half a mile the stream was dammed up into a deep lake. Amongst the gneiss and granite boulders brought down by this debacle, I collected some actinolites; but all minerals are extremely rare in Sikkim and I never heard of a gem or crystal of any size or beauty, or of an ore of any consequence, being found in this country.
I met my friend on the other side of the mud torrent, and I was truly rejoiced to see him, though he was looking much the worse for his trying journey through the hot valleys at this season; in fact, I know no greater trial of the constitution than the exposure and hard exercise that is necessary in traversing these valleys, below 5000 feet, in the rainy season: delay is dangerous, and the heat, anxiety, and bodily suffering from fatigue, insects, and bruises, banish sleep, and urge the restless traveller onward to higher and more healthy regions. Dr. Campbell had, I found, in addition to the ordinary dangers of such a journey, met with an accident which might have proved serious; his pony having been dashed to pieces by falling over a precipice, a fate he barely escaped himself, by adroitly slipping from the saddle when he felt the animal's foot giving way.
On our way back to Choongtam, he detailed to me the motives that had led to his obtaining the authority of the Deputy-Governor of Bengal (Lord Dalhousie being absent) for his visiting Sikkim. Foremost, was his earnest desire to cultivate a better understanding with the Rajah and his officers. He had always taken the Rajah's part, from a conviction that he was not to blame for the misunderstandings which the Sikkim officers pretended to exist between their country and Dorjiling; he had, whilst urgently remonstrating with the Rajah, insisted on forbearance on my part, and had long exercised it himself. In detailing the treatment to which I was subjected, I had not hesitated to express my opinion that the Rajah was more compromised by it than his Dewan: Dr. Campbell, on the contrary, knew that the Dewan was the head and front of the whole system of annoyance. In one point of view it mattered little who was in the right; but the transaction was a violation of good faith on the part of the Sikkim government towards the British, for which the Rajah, however helpless, was yet responsible. To act upon my representations alone would have been unjust, and no course remained but for Dr. Campbell to inquire personally into the matter. The authority to do this gave him also the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the country which we were bound to protect, as well by our interest as by treaty, but from which we were so jealously excluded, that should any contingency occur, we were ignorant of what steps to take for defence, and, indeed, of what we should have to defend.
On the 6th of October we left Choongtam for my second visit to the Kongra Lama pass, hoping to get round by the Cholamoo lakes and the Donkia pass. As the country beyond the frontier was uninhabited, the Tchebu Lama saw no difficulty in this, provided the Lachen Phipun and the Tibetans did not object. Our great obstacle was the Singtam Soubah, who (by the Rajah's order) accompanied us to clear the road, and give us every facility, but who was very sulky, and undisguisedly rude to Campbell; he was in fact extremely jealous of the Lama, who held higher authority than he did, and who alone had the Rajah's confidence.
Our first day's march was of about ten miles to one of the river-flats, which was covered with wild apple-trees, whose fruit, when stewed with sugar, we found palatable. The Lachen river, though still swollen, was comparatively clear; the rains usually ceasing, or at least moderating, in October: its water was about 5 degrees colder than in the beginning of August.
During the second day's march we were stopped at the Taktoong river by the want of a bridge, which the Singtam Soubah refused to exert himself to have repaired; its waters were, however, so fallen, that our now large party soon bridged it with admirable skill. We encamped the second night on Chateng, and the following day made a long march, crossing the Zemu, and ascending half-way to Tallum Samdong. The alpine foliage was rapidly changing colour; and that of the berberry turning scarlet, gave a warm glow to the mountain above the forest. Lamteng village was deserted: turnips were maturing near the houses, and buckwheat on the slope behind; the latter is a winter-crop at lower elevations, and harvested in April. At Zemu Samdong the willow-leaves were becoming sear and yellow, and the rose-bushes bore enormous scarlet hips, two inches long, and covered with bristles; they were sweet, and rather good eating. Near Tungu (where we arrived on the 9th) the great Sikkim currant was in fruit; its berries are much larger than the English, and of the same beautiful red colour, but bitter and very acid; they are, however, eaten by the Tibetans, who call them "Kewdemah."
Near the village I found Dr. Campbell remonstrating with the Lachen Phipun on the delays and rude treatment I had received in June and July: the man, of course, answered every question with falsehoods, which is the custom of these people, and produced the Rajah's orders for my being treated with every civility, as a proof that he must have behaved as he ought! The Singtam Soubah, as was natural, hung back, for it was owing to him alone that the orders had been contravened, and the Phipun appealed to the bystanders for the truth of this.
The Phipun (accompanied by his Larpun or subordinate officer) had prepared for us a sumptuous refreshment of tea soup, which was brewing by the road, and in which all animosities were soon washed away. We took up our abode at Tungu in a wooden but under the great rock, where we were detained for several days by bad weather. I was assured that during all August and September the weather had been uniformly gloomy, as at Momay, though little rain had fallen.
We had much difficulty in purchasing a sufficient dumber of blankets* [These were made of goat's wool, teazed into a satiny surface by little teazle-like brushes of bamboo.] for our people, and in arranging for our journey, to which the Lachen Phipun was favourable, promising us ponies for the expedition. The vegetation around was wholly changed since my July visit: the rhododendron scrub was verdigris-green from the young leaves which burst in autumn, and expose at the end of each branchlet a flower-bud covered with resinous scales, which are thrown off in the following spring. The jungle was spotted yellow with the withered birch, maple and mountain-ash, and scarlet with berberry bushes; while above, the pastures were yellow-brown with the dead grass, and streaked with snow.
Amongst other luxuries, we procured the flesh of yak calves, which is excellent veal: we always returned the foot for the mother to lick while being milked, without which she yields nothing. The yak goes nine months with calf, and drops one every two years, bearing altogetber ten or twelve: the common Sikkim cow of lower elevations, at Dorjiling invariably goes from nine and a half to ten months, and calves annually: ponies go eleven months, and foal nearly every year. In Tibet the sheep are annually sheared; the ewes drop their young in spring and autumn, but the lambs born at the latter period often die of cold and starvation, and double lambing is unknown; whereas, in the plains of Bengal (where, however, sheep cannot be said to thrive without pulse fodder) twins are constantly born. At Dorjiling the sheep drop a lamb once in the season. The Tibetan mutton we generally found dry and stringy.
In these regions many of my goats and kids had died foaming at the mouth and grinding their teeth; and I here discovered the cause to arise from their eating the leaves of _Rhododendron cinnabarinum* [The poisonous honey produced by other species is alluded to at vol. i., chapter ix. An Andromeda and a Gualtheria, I have been assured are equally deleterious.] ("Kema Kechoong," Lepcha: Kema signifying Rhododendron): this species alone is said to be poisonous; and when used as fuel, it causes the face to swell and the eyes to inflame; of which I observed several instances. As the subject of fire-wood is of every-day interest to the traveller in these regions, I may here mention that the rhododendron woods afford poor fires; juniper burns the brightest, and with least smoke. Abies Webbiana, though emitting much smoke, gives a cheerful fire, far superior to larch,* [The larch of northern Asia (Larix Europoea) is said to produce a pungent smoke, which I never observed to be the case with the Sikkim species.] spruce, or Abies Brunoniana. At Dorjiling, oak is the common fuel; alder is also good. Chestnut is invariably used for blacksmith's charcoal. Magnolia has a disagreeable odour, and laurel burns very badly.
The phenomenon of phosphorescence is most conspicuous on stacks of fire-wood. At Dorjiling, during the damp, warm, summer months (May to October), at elevations of 5000 to 8000 feet, it may be witnessed every night by penetrating a few yards into the forest—at least it was so in 1848 and 1849; and during my stay there billets of decayed wood were repeatedly sent to me by residents, with inquiries as to the cause of their luminosity. It is no exaggeration to say that one does not need to move from the fireside to see this phenomenon, for if there is a partially decayed log amongst the fire-wood, it is almost sure to glow with a pale phosphoric light. A stack of fire-wood, collected near my host's (Mr. Hodgson) cottage, presented a beautiful spectacle for two months (in July and August), and on passing it at night, I had to quiet my pony, who was always alarmed by it. The phenomenon invariably accompanies decay, and is common on oak, laurel (Tetranthera), birch, and probably other timbers; it equally appears on cut wood and on stumps, but is most frequent on branches lying close to the ground in the wet forests. I have reason to believe that it spreads with great rapidity from old surfaces to freshly cut ones. That it is a vital phenomenon, and due to the mycelium of a fungus, I do not in the least doubt, for I have observed it occasionally circumscribed by those black lines which are often seen to bound mycelia on dead wood, and to precede a more rapid decay. I have often tried, but always in vain, to coax these mycelia into developing some fungus, by placing them in damp rooms, etc. When camping in the mountains, I frequently caused the natives to bring phosphorescent wood into my tent, for the pleasure of watching its soft undulating light, which appears to pale and glow with every motion of the atmosphere; but except in this difference of intensity, it presents no change in appearance night after night. Alcohol, heat, and dryness soon dissipate it; electricity I never tried. It has no odour, and my dog, who had a fine sense of smell, paid no heed when it was laid under his nose.* [As far as my observations go, this phenomenon of light is confined to the lower orders of vegetable life, to the fungi alone, and is not dependent on irritability. I have never seen luminous flowers or roots, nor do I know of any authenticated instance of such, which may not be explained by the presence of mycelium or of animal life. In the animal kingdom, luminosity is confined, I believe, to the Invertebrata, and is especially common amongst the Radiata and Mollusca; it is also frequent in the Entromostracous Crustacea, and in various genera of most orders of insects. In all these, even in the Sertulariae, I have invariably observed the light to be increased by irritation, in which respect the luminosity of animal life differs from that of vegetable.]
The weather continuing bad, and snow falling, the country people began to leave for their winter-quarters at Lamteng. In the evenings we enjoyed the company of the Phipun and Tchebu Lama, who relished a cup of sugarless tea more than any other refreshment we could offer. From them we collected much Tibetan information:—the former was an inveterate smoker, using a pale, mild tobacco, mixed largely with leaves of the small wild Tibetan Rhubarb, called "Chula." Snuff is little used, and is principally procured from the plains of India.
We visited Palung twice, chiefly in hopes that Dr. Campbell might see the magnificent prospect of Kinchinjhow from its plains: the first time we gained little beyond a ducking, but on the second (October the 15th) the view was superb; and I likewise caught a glimpse of Kinchinjunga from the neighbouring heights, bearing south 60 degrees west and distant forty miles. I also measured barometrically the elevation at the great chait on the plains, and found it 15,620 feet, and by carefully boiled thermometers, 15,283, on the 13th October, and 15,566 on the 15th: the difference being due to the higher temperature on the latter day, and to a rise of 0.3 degree on both boiling-point thermometers above what the same instruments stood at on the 13th. The elevation of Tungu from the October barometrical observations was only seven feet higher than that given by those of July; the respective heights being 12,766 feet in July, and 12,773 in October.* [The elevation of Tungu by boiling-point was 12,650 feet by a set of July observations, 12,818 by a set taken on the 11th of October, and 12,544 by a set on the 14th of October: the discrepancies were partly due to the temperature corrections, but mainly to the readings of the thermometers, which were— July 28, sunset 189.5, air 47.3 degrees, elev. 12,650 Oct. 11, noon 189.5, air 37.6 degrees, elev. 12,818 Oct. 14, sunset 190.1, air 45.3 degrees, elev. 12,544] The mean temperature had fallen from 50 degrees in July to 41 degrees, and that of the sunk thermometer from 57 degrees to 51.4 degrees. The mean range in July was 23.3 degrees, and in October 13.8 degrees; the weather during the latter period being, however, uniformly cold and misty, this was much below the mean monthly range, which probably exceeds 30 degrees. Much more rain fell in October at Tungu than at Dorjiling, which is the opposite to what occurs during the rainy season.
October 15th. Having sent the coolies forward, with instructions to halt and camp on this side of the Kongra Lama pass, we followed them, taking the route by Palung, and thence over the hills to the Lachen, to the east of which we descended, and further up its valley joined the advanced party in a rocky glen, called Sitong, an advantageous camping ground, from being sheltered by rocks which ward off the keen blasts: its elevation is 15,370 feet above the sea, and the magnificent west cliff of Kinchinjhow towers over it not a mile distant, bearing due east, and subtending an angle of 24.3 degrees. The afternoon was misty, but at 7 p.m. the south-east wind fell, and was immediately succeeded by the biting north return current, which dispelled the fog: hoar-frost sparkled on the ground, and the moon shone full on the snowy head of Kinchinjhow, over which the milky-way and the broad flashing orbs of the stars formed a jewelled diadem. The night was very windy and cold, though the thermometer fell no lower than 22 degrees, that placed in a polished parabolic reflector to 20 degrees, and another laid on herbage to 17.5 degrees.
On the 16th we were up early. I felt very anxious about the prospect of our getting round by Donkia pass and Cholamoo, which would enable me to complete the few remaining miles of my long survey of the Teesta river, and which promised immense results in the views I should obtain of the country, and of the geology and botany of these lofty snowless regions. Campbell, though extremely solicitous to obtain permission from the Tibetan guard, (who were waiting for us on the frontier), was nevertheless bound by his own official position to yield at once to their wishes, should they refuse us a passage.
The sun rose on our camp at 7.30 a.m., when the north wind fell; and within an hour afterwards the temperature had risen to 45 degrees. Having had our sticks* [It was an invariable custom of our Lepcba and Tibetan attendants, to warm the handles of our sticks in cold weather, before starting on our daily marches. This is one of many little instances I could adduce, of their thoughtfulness and attention to the smallest comforts of the stranger and wanderer in their lands.] warmed and handed to us, we started on ponies, accompanied by the Lama only, to hold a parley with the Tibetans; ordering the rest of the party to follow at their leisure. We had not proceeded far when we were joined by two Tibetan Sepoys, who, on our reaching the pass, bellowed lustily for their companions; when Campbell and the Lama drew up at the chait of Kongra Lama, and announced his wish to confer with their commandant.
My anxiety was now wound up to a pitch; I saw men with matchlocks emerging from amongst the rocks under Chomiomo, and despairing of permission being obtained, I goaded my pony with heels and stick, and dashed on up the Lachen valley, resolved to make the best of a splendid day, and not turn back till I had followed the river to the Cholamoo lakes: The Sepoys followed me a few paces, but running being difficult at 16,000 feet, they soon gave up the chase.
A few miles ride in a north-east direction over an open, undulating country, brought me to the Lachen, flowing westwards in a broad, open, stony valley, bounded by Kinchinjhow on the south, (its face being as precipitous as that on the opposite side), and on the north by the Peukathlo, a low range of rocky, sloping mountains, of which the summits were 18,000 to 19,000 feet above the sea. Enormous erratic blocks of gneiss strewed the ground, which was sandy or gravelly, and cut into terraces along the shallow, winding river, the green and sparkling waters of which rippled over pebbles, or expanded into lagoons. The already scanty vegetation diminished rapidly: it consisted chiefly of scattered bushes of a dwarf scrubby honeysuckle and tufts of nettle, both so brittle as to be trodden into powder, and the short leafless twiggy Ephedra, a few inches higher. The most alpine rhododendron (R. nivale) spread its small rigid branches close to the ground; the hemispherical Arenaria, another type of sterility, rose here and there, and tufts of Myosotis, Artemisia, Astragali, and Adrosace, formed flat cushions level with the soil. Grass was very scarce, but a running wiry sedge (Carex Moorcroftii) bound the sand, like the Carex arenaria of our English coasts.
A more dismally barren country cannot well be conceived, nor one more strongly contrasting with the pastures of Palung at an equal elevation. The long lofty wall of Kinchinjhow and Donkia presents an effectual barrier to the transmission of moisture to the head of the Lachen valley, which therefore becomes a type of such elevations in Tibet. As I proceeded, the ground became still more sandy, chirping under the pony's feet; and where harder, it was burrowed by innumerable marmots, foxes, and the "Goomchen," or tail-less rat (Lagomys badius), sounding hollow to the tread, and at last becoming so dangerous that I was obliged to dismount and walk.