We could make no further progress; the pass lay at the distance of several hours' march, up a valley to the north, down which the glacier must have rolled that had deposited this great moraine; the pass had been closed since October, it being very lofty, and the head of this valley was far more snowy than that at Wallanchoon. We halted in the snow from 3 to 4 p.m., during which time I again took angles and observations; the height of this spot, called Pabuk, is 16,038 feet, whence the pass is probably considerably over 17,000 feet, for there was a steep ascent beyond our position. The sun sank at 3 p.m., and the thermometer immediately fell from 35 degrees to 30.75 degrees.* [At 4 o'clock, to 29.5 degrees, the average dew-point was 16.3 degrees, and dryness 0.55; weight of vapour in a cubic foot, 1.33 grains.]

After fixing in my note and sketch books the principal features of this sublime scene, we returned down the valley: the distance to our camp being fully eight miles, night overtook us before we got half-way, but a two days' old moon guided us perfectly, a remarkable instance of the clearness of the atmosphere at these great elevations. Lassitude, giddiness, and headache came on as our exertions increased, and took away the pleasure I should otherwise have felt in contemplating by moonlight the varied phenomena, which seemed to crowd upon the restless imagination, in the different forms of mountain, glacier, moraine, lake, boulder and terrace. Happily I had noted everything on my way up, and left nothing intentionally to be done on returning. In making such excursions as this, it is above all things desirable to seize and book every object worth noticing on the way out: I always carried my note-book and pencil tied to my jacket pocket, and generally walked with them in my hand. It is impossible to begin observing too soon, or to observe too much: if the excursion is long, little is ever done on the way home; the bodily powers being mechanically exerted, the mind seeks repose, and being fevered through over-exertion, it can endure no train of thought, or be brought to bear on a subject.

During my stay at Yangma, the thermometer never rose to 50 degrees, it fell to 14.75 degrees at night; the ground was frozen for several inches below the surface, but at two feet depth its temperature was 37.5 degrees. The black bulb thermometer rose on one occasion 84 degrees above the surrounding air. Before leaving, I measured by angles and a base-line the elevations of the great village-terrace above the river, and that of a loftier one, on the west flank of the main valley; the former was about 400 and the latter 700 feet.

Considering this latter as the upper terrace, and concluding that it marks a water level, it is not very difficult to account for its origin. There is every reason to suppose that the flanks of the valley were once covered to the elevation of the upper terrace, with an enormous accumulation of debris; though it does not follow that the whole valley was filled by ice-action to the same depth; the effect of glaciers being to deposit moraines between themselves and the sides of the valley they fill; as also to push forward similar accumulations. Glaciers from each valley, meeting at the fork, where their depth would be 700 feet of ice, would both deposit the necessary accumulation along the flanks of the great valley, and also throw a barrier across it. The melting waters of such glaciers would accumulate in lakes, confined by the frozen earth, between the moraines and mountains. Such lakes, though on a small scale, are found at the terminations and sides of existing glaciers, and are surrounded by terraces of shingle and debris; these terraces being laid bare by the sudden drainage of the lakes during seasons of unusual warmth. To explain the phenomena of the Yangma valley, it may be necessary to demand larger lakes and deeper accumulations of debris than are now familiar to us, but the proofs of glaciers having once descended to from 8000 to 10,000 feet in every Sikkim and east Nepal valley communicating with mountains above 16,000 feet elevation, are overwhelming, and the glaciers must, in some cases, have been fully forty miles long, and 500 feet in depth. The absence of any remains of a moraine, or of blocks of rock in the valley below the fork, is I believe, the only apparent objection to this theory; but, as I shall elsewhere have occasion to observe, the magnitude of the moraines bears no fixed proportion to that of the glacier, and at Pabuk, the steep ridges of debris, which were heaped up 200 feet high, were far more striking than the more usual form of moraine.

On my way up to Yangma I had rudely plotted the valley, and selected prominent positions for improving my plan on my return: these I now made use of, taking bearings with the azimuth compass, and angles by means of a pocket sextant. The result of my running-survey of the whole valley, from 10,000 to 16,000 feet, I have given along with a sketch-map of my routes in India, which accompanies this volume.

Illustration—SKULLS OF OVIS AMMON.



CHAPTER XI

Ascend to Nango mountain—Moraines—Glaciers—Vegetation— Rhododendron Hodgsoni—Rocks—Honey-combed surface of snow— Perpetual snow—Top of pass—View—Elevation—Geology— Distance of sound—Plants—Temperature—Scenery—Cliffs of granite and hurled boulders—Camp—Descent—Pheasants—Larch —Himalayan pines—Distribution of Deodar, note on— Tassichooding temples—Kambachen village—Cultivation—Moraines in valley, distribution of—Picturesque lake-beds, and their vegetation—Tibetan sheep and goats—Cryptogramma crispa— Ascent to Choonjerma pass—View of Junnoo—Rocks of its summit— Misty ocean—Nepal peaks—Top of pass—Temperature, and observations—Gorgeous sunset—Descent to Yalloong valley— Loose path—Night scenes—Musk deer.

We passed the night a few miles below the great moraine, in a pine-wood (alt. 11,000 feet) opposite the gorge which leads to the Kambachen or Nango pass, over the south shoulder of the mountain of that name: it is situated on a ridge dividing the Yangma river from that of Kambachen, which latter falls into the Tambur opposite Lelyp.

The road crosses the Yangma (which is about fifteen feet wide), and immediately ascends steeply to the south-east, over a rocky moraine, clothed with a dense thicket of rhododendrons, mountain-ash, maples, pine, birch, juniper, etc. The ground was covered with silvery flakes of birch bark, and that of Rhododendron Hodgsoni, which is as delicate as tissue-paper, and of a pale flesh-colour. I had never before met with this species, and was astonished at the beauty of its foliage, which was of a beautiful bright green, with leaves sixteen inches long.

Beyond the region of trees and large shrubs the alpine rhododendrons filled the broken surface of the valley, growing with Potentilla, Honeysuckle, Polygonum, and dwarf juniper. The peak of Nango seemed to tower over the gorge, rising behind some black, splintered, rocky cliffs, sprinkled with snow, narrow defiles opened up through these cliffs to blue glaciers, and their mouths were invariably closed by beds of shingly moraines, curving outwards from either, flank in concentric ridges.

Towards the base of the peak, at about 14,000 feet, the scenery is very grand; a great moraine rises suddenly to the north-west, under the principal mass of snow and ice, and barren slopes of gravel descend from it; on either side are rugged precipices; the ground is bare and stony, with patches of brown grass: and, on looking back, the valley appears very steep to the first shrubby vegetation, of dark green rhododendrons, bristling with ugly stunted pines.

We followed a valley to the south-east, so as to turn the flank of the peak; the path lying over beds of October snow at 14,000 feet, and over plashy ground, from its melting. Sometimes our way lay close to the black precipices on our right, under which the snow was deep; and we dragged ourselves along, grasping every prominence of the rock with our numbed fingers. Granite appeared in large veins in the crumpled gneiss at a great elevation, in its most beautiful and loosely-crystallised form, of pearly white prisms of felspar, glassy quartz, and milk-white flat plates of mica, with occasionally large crystals of tourmaline. Garnets were very frequent in the gneiss near the granite veins. Small rushes, grasses, and sedges formed the remaining vegetation, amongst which were the withered stalks of gentians, Sedum, Arenaria, Silene, and many Composite plants.

At a little below 15,000 feet, we reached enormous flat beds of snow, which were said to be perpetual, but covered deeply with the October fall. They were continuous, and like all the snow I saw at this season, the surface was honeycombed into thin plates, dipping north at a high angle; the intervening fissures were about six inches deep. A thick mist here overtook us, and this, with the great difficulty of picking our way, rendered the ascent very fatiguing. Being sanguine about obtaining a good view, I found it almost impossible to keep my temper under the aggravations of pain in the forehead, lassitude, oppression of breathing, a dense drizzling fog, a keen cold wind, a slippery footing, where I was stumbling at every few steps, and icy-cold wet feet, hands, and eyelids; the latter, odd as it sounds, I found a very disagreeable accompaniment of continued raw cold wind.

After an hour and a half's toilsome ascent, during which we made but little progress, we reached the crest, crossing a broad shelf of snow between two rocky eminences; the ridge was unsnowed a little way down the east flank; this was, in a great measure, due to the eastern exposure being the more sunny, to the prevalence of the warm and melting south-east winds that blow up the deep Kambachen valley, and to the fact that the great snow-beds on the west side are drifted accumulations.* [Such enormous beds of snow in depressions, or on gentle slopes, are generally adopted as indicating the lower limit of perpetual snow. They are, however, winter accumulations, due mainly to eddies of wind, of far more snow than can be melted in the following summer, being hence perennial in the ordinary sense of the word. They pass into the state of glacier ice, and, obeying the laws that govern the motions of a viscous fluid, so admirably elucidated by Forbes ("Travels in the Alps"), they flow downwards. A careful examination of those great beds of snow in the Alps, from whose position the mean lower level of perpetual snow, in that latitude, is deduced, has convinced me that these are mainly due to accumulations of this kind, and that the true limit of perpetual snow, or that point where all that falls melts, is much higher than it is usually supposed to be.] The mist cleared off, and I had a partial, though limited, view. To the north the blue ice-clad peak of Nango was still 2000 feet above us, its snowy mantle falling in great sweeps and curves into glacier-bound valleys, over which the ice streamed out of sight, bounded by black aiguilles of gneiss. The Yangma valley was quite hidden, but to the eastward the view across the stupendous gorge of the Kambachen, 5000 feet below, to the waste of snow, ice, and rock, piled in confusion along the top of the range of Junnoo and Choonjerma, parallel to this but higher, was very grand indeed: this we were to cross in two days, and its appearance was such, that our guide doubted the possibility of our doing it. A third and fourth mountain mass (unseen) lay beyond this, between us and Sikkim, divided by valleys as deep as those of Yangma and Kambachen.

Having hung up my instruments, I ascended a few hundred feet to some naked rocks, to the northward; they were of much-crumpled and dislocated gneiss, thrown up at a very high angle, and striking north-west. Chlorite, schist, and quartz, in thin beds, alternated with the gneiss, and veins of granite and quartz, were injected through them.

It fell calm; when the distance to which the voice was carried was very remarkable; I could distinctly hear every word spoken 300 to 400 yards off, and did not raise my voice when I asked one of the men to bring me a hammer.

The few plants about were generally small tufted Arenarias and woolly Compositae, with a thick-rooted Umbellifer that spread its short, fleshy leaves and branches flat on the ground; the root was very aromatic, but wedged close in the rock. The temperature at 4 p.m. was 23 degrees, and bitterly cold; the elevation, 15,770 feet; dew-point, 16 degrees. The air was not very dry; saturation-point, 0.670 degrees, whereas at Calcutta it was 0.498 degrees at the same hour.

The descent was to a broad, open valley, into which the flank of Nango dipped in tremendous precipices, which reared their heads in splintered snowy peaks. At their bases were shoots of debris fully 700 feet high, sloping at a steep angle. Enormous masses of rock, detached by the action of the frost and ice from the crags, were scattered over the bottom of the valley; they had been precipitated from above, and gaining impetus in their descent, bad been hurled to almost inconceivable distances from the parent cliff. All were of a very white, fine-grained crystallised granite, full of small veins of the same rock still more finely crystallised. The weathered surface of each block was black, and covered with moss and lichens; the others beautifully white, with clean, sharp-fractured edges. The material of which they were composed was so hard that I found it difficult to detach a specimen.

Darkness had already come on, and the coolies being far behind, we encamped by the light of the moon, shining through a thin fog, where we first found dwarf-juniper for fuel, at 13,500 feet. A little sleet fell during the night, which was tolerably fine, and not very cold; the minimum thermometer indicating 14.5 degrees.

Having no tent-poles, I had some difficulty in getting my blankets arranged as a shelter, which was done by making them slant from the side of a boulder, on the top of which one end was kept by heavy stones; under this roof I laid my bed, on a mass of rhododendron and juniper-twigs. The men did the same against other boulders, and lighting a huge fire opposite the mouth of my ground-nest, I sat cross-legged on the bed to eat my supper; my face scorching, and my back freezing. Rice, boiled with a few ounces of greasy dindon aux truffes was now my daily dinner, with chili-vinegar and tea, and I used to relish it keenly: this finished, I smoked a cigar, and wrote up my journal (in short intervals between warming myself) by the light of the fire; took observations by means of a dark-lantern; and when all this was accomplished, I went to roost.

December 5.—On looking out this morning, it was with a feeling of awe that I gazed at the stupendous ice-crowned precipices that shot up to the summit of Nango, their flanks spotted white at the places whence the gigantic masses with which I was surrounded had fallen; thence my eye wandered down their black faces to the slope of debris at the bottom, thus tracing the course which had probably been taken by that rock under whose shelter I had passed the previous night.

Meepo, the Lepcha sent by the rajah, had snared a couple of beautiful pheasants, one of which I skinned, and ate for breakfast; it is a small bird, common above 12,000 feet, but very wild; the male has two to five spurs on each of its legs, according to its age; the general colour is greenish, with a broad scarlet patch surrounding the eye; the Nepalese name is "Khalidge." The crop was distended with juniper berries, of which the flesh tasted strongly, and it was the very hardest, toughest bird I ever did eat.

We descended at first through rhododendron and juniper, then through black silver-fir (Abies Webbiana), and below that, near the river, we came to the Himalayan larch; a tree quite unknown, except from a notice in the journals of Mr. Griffith, who found it in Bhotan. It is a small tree, twenty to forty feet high, perfectly similar in general characters to a European larch, but with larger cones, which are erect upon the very long, pensile, whip-like branches; its leaves,—now red—were falling, and covering the rocky ground on which it grew, scattered amongst other trees. It is called "Saar" by the Lepchas and Cis-himalayan Tibetans, and "Boarga-sella" by the Nepalese, who say it is found as far west as the heads of the Cosi river: it does not inhabit Central or West Nepal, nor the North-west Himalaya. The distribution of the Himalayan pines is very remarkable. The Deodar has not been seen east of Nepal, nor the Pinus Gerardiana, Cupressus torulosa, or Juniperus communis. On the other hand, Podocarpus is confined to the east of Katmandoo. Abies Brunoniana does not occur west of the Gogra, nor the larch west of the Cosi, nor funereal cypress (an introduced plant, however) west of the Teesta (in Sikkim). Of the twelve* [Juniper, 3; yew, Abies Webbiana, Brunoniana, and Smithiana: Larch, Pinus excelsa, and longifolia, and Podocarpus neriifolia.] Sikkim and Bhotan Coniferae (including yew, junipers, and Podocarpus) eight are common to the North-west Himalaya (west of Nepal), and four* [Larch, Cupressus funebris, Podocarpus neriifolia, Abies Brunoniana.] are not: of the thirteen natives of the north-west provinces, again, only five* [A juniper (the European communis), Deodar (possibly only a variety of the Cedar of Lebanon and of Mount Atlas), Pinus Gerardiana, P. excelsa, and Crupressus torulosa.] are not found in Sikkim, and I have given their names below, because they show how European the absent ones are, either specifically or in affinity. I have stated that the Deodar is possibly a variety of the Cedar of Lebanon. This is now a prevalent opinion, which is strengthened by the fact that so many more Himalayan plants are now ascertained to be European than had been supposed before they were compared with European specimens; such are the yew, Juniperus communis, Berberis vulgaris, Quercus Ballota, Populus alba and Euphratica, etc. The cones of the Deodar are identical with those of the Cedar of Lebanon: the Deodar has, generally longer and more pale bluish leaves and weeping branches,* [Since writing the above, I have seen, in the magnificent Pinetum at Dropmore, noble cedars, with the length and hue of leaf, and the pensile branches of the Deodar, and far more beautiful than that is, and as unlike the common Lebanon Cedar as possible. When it is considered from how very few wild trees (and these said to be exactly alike) the many dissimilar varieties of the C. Libani have been derived; the probability of this, the Cedar of Algiers, and of the Himalayas (Deodar) being all forms of one species, is greatly increased. We cannot presume to judge from the few cedars which still remain, what the habit and appearance of the tree may have been, when it covered the slopes of Libanus, and seeing how very variable Coniferae are in habit, we may assume that its surviving specimens give us no information on this head. Should all three prove one, it will materially enlarge our ideas of the distribution and variation of species. The botanist will insist that the typical form of cedar is that which retains its characters best over the greatest area, namely, the Deodar; in which case the prejudice of the ignorant, and the preconceived ideas of the naturalist, must yield to the fact that the old familiar Cedar of Lebanon is an unusual variety of the Himalayan Deodar.] but these characters seem to be unusually developed in our gardens; for several gentlemen, well acquainted with the Deodar at Simla, when asked to point it out in the Kew Gardens, have indicated the Cedar of Lebanon, and when shown the Deodar, declare that they never saw that plant in the Himalaya!

At the bottom of the valley we turned up the stream, and passing the Tassichooding convents* [These were built by the Sikkim people, when the eastern valleys of Nepal belonged to the Sikkim rajah.] and temple, crossed the river—which was a furious torrent, about twelve yards wide—to the village of Kambachen, on a flat terrace a few feet above the stream. There were about a dozen houses of wood, plastered with mud and dung, scattered over a grassy plain of a few acres, fenced in, as were also a few fields, with stone dykes. The only cultivation consists of radishes, potatos, and barley: no wheat is grown, the climate being said to be too cold for it, by which is probably meant that it is foggy,—the elevation (11,380 feet) being 2000 feet less than that of Yangma village, and the temperature therefore 6 degrees to 7 degrees warmer; but of all the mountain gorges I have ever visited, this is by far the wildest, grandest, and most gloomy; and that man should hybernate here is indeed extraordinary, for there is no route up the valley, and all communication with Lelyp,* [Which I passed, on the Tambur, on the 21st Nov. See Chapter IX.] two marches down the river, is cut off in winter, when the houses are buried in snow, and drifts fifteen feet deep are said to be common. Standing on the little flat of Kambachen, precipices, with inaccessible patches of pine wood, appeared to the west, towering over head; while across the narrow valley wilder and less wooded crags rose in broken ridges to the glaciers of Nango. Up the valley, the view was cut off by bluff cliffs; whilst down it, the scene was most remarkable: enormous black, round-backed moraines, rose, tier above tier, from a flat lake-bed, apparently hemming in the river between the lofty precipices on the east flank of the valley. These had all been deposited at the mouth of a lateral valley, opening just below the village, and descending from Junnoo, a mountain of 25,312 feet elevation, and one of the grandest of the Kinchinjunga group, whose top—though only five miles distant in a straight line—rises 13,932 feet* [This is one of the most sudden slopes in this part of the Himalaya, the angle between the top of Junnoo and Kambachen being 2786 feet per mile, or 1 in 1.8. The slope from the top of Mont Blanc to the Chamouni valley is 2464 feet per mile, or 1 in 2.1. That from Monte Rosa top to Macugnaga greatly exceeds either.] above the village. Few facts show more decidedly the extraordinary steepness and depth of the Kambachen valley near the village, which, though nearly 11,400 feet above the sea, lies between two mountains only eight miles apart, the one 25,312 feet high, the other (Nango), 19,000 feet.

The villagers received us very kindly, and furnished us with a guide for the Choonjerma pass, leading to the Yalloong valley, the most easterly in Nepal; but he recommended our not attempting any part of the ascent till the morrow, as it was past 1 p.m., and we should find no camping-ground for half the way up. The villagers gave us the leg of a musk deer, and some red potatos, about as big as walnuts—all they could spare from their winter-stock. With this scanty addition to our stores we started down the valley, for a few miles alternately along flat lake-beds and over moraines, till we crossed the stream from the lateral valley, and ascending a little, camped on its bank, at 11,400 feet elevation.

In the afternoon I botanized amongst the moraines, which were very numerous, and had been thrown down at right-angles to the main valley, which latter being here very narrow, and bounded by lofty precipices, must have stopped the parent glaciers, and effected the heaping of some of these moraines to at least 1000 feet above the river. The general features were modifications of those seen in the Yangma valley, but contracted into a much smaller space.

The moraines were all accumulated in a sort of delta, through which the lateral river debouched into the Kambachen, and were all deposited more or less parallel to the course of the lateral valley, but curving outwards from its mouth. The village-flat, or terrace, continued level to the first moraine, which had been thrown down on the upper or north side of the lateral valley, on whose and curving steep flanks it abutted, and curving outwards seemed to encircle the village-flat on the south and west; where it dipped into the river. This was crossed at the height of about 100 feet, by a stony path, leading to the bed of the rapid torrent flowing through shingle and boulders, beyond which was another moraine, 250 feet high, and parallel to it a third gigantic one.

Ascending the great moraine at a place where it overhung the main river, I had a good coup-a'oeil of the whole. The view south-east up the glacial valley—(represented in the accompanying cut)—to the snowy peaks south of Junnoo, was particularly grand, and most interesting from the precision with which one great distant existing glacier was marked by two waving parallel lines of lateral moraines, which formed, as it were, a vast raised gutter, or channel, ascending from perhaps 16,000 feet elevation, till it was hidden behind a spur in the valley. With a telescope I could descry many similar smaller glaciers, with huge accumulations of shingle at their terminations; but this great one was beautifully seen by the naked eye, and formed a very curious feature in the landscape.

Illustration—ANCIENT MORAINES IN THE RAMBACHEN VALLEY.

Between the moraines, near my tent, the soil was perfectly level, and consisted of little lake-beds strewn with gigantic boulders, and covered with hard turf of grass and sedge, and little bushes of dwarf rhododendron and prostrate juniper, as trim as if they had been clipped. Altogether these formed the most picturesque little nooks it was possible to conceive; and they exhibited the withered remains of so many kinds of primrose, gentian, anemone, potentilla, orchis, saxifrage, parnassia, campanula, and pedicularis, that in summer they must be perfect gardens of wild flowers. Around each plot of a few acres was the grand ice-transported girdle of stupendous rocks, many from 50 to 100 feet long, crested with black tabular-branched silver firs, conical deep green tree-junipers, and feathery larches; whilst amongst the blocks grew a profusion of round masses of evergreen rhododendron bushes. Beyond were stupendous frowning cliffs, beneath which the river roared like thunder; and looking up the glacial valley, the setting sun was bathing the expanse of snow in the most delicate changing tints, pink, amber, and gold.

The boulders forming the moraine were so enormous and angular, that I had great difficulty in ascending it. I saw some pheasants feeding on the black berries of the juniper, but where the large rhododendrons grew amongst the rocks I found it impossible to penetrate. The largest of the moraines is piled to upwards of 1000 feet against the south flank of the lateral valley, and stretched far up it beyond my camp, which was in a grove of silver firs. A large flock of sheep and goats, laden with salt, overtook us here on their route from Wallanchoon to Yalloong. The sheep I observed to feed on the Rhododendron Thomsoni and campylocarpum. On the roots of one of the latter species a parasitical Broom-rape (Orobanche) grew abundantly; and about the moraines were more mosses, lichens, etc., than I have elsewhere seen in the loftier Himalaya, encouraged no doubt by the dampness of this grand mountain gorge, which is so hemmed in that the sun never reaches it until four or five hours after it has gilded the overhanging peaks.

December 5.—The morning was bright and clear, and we left early for the Choonjerma pass. I had hoped the route would be up the magnificent glacier-girdled valley in which we had encamped; but it lay up another, considerably south of it, and to which we crossed, ascending the rocky moraine, in the clefts of which grew abundance of a common Scotch fern, Cryptogramma crispa!

The clouds early commenced gathering, and it was curious to watch their rapid formation in coalescing streaks, which became first cirrhi, and then stratus, being apparently continually added to from below by the moisture-bringing southerly wind. Ascending a lofty spur, 1000 feet above the valley, against which the moraine was banked, I found it to be a distinct anticlinal axis. The pass, bearing north-west, and the valley we had descended on the previous day, rose immediately over the curved strata of quartz, topped by the glacier-crowned mountain of Nango, with four glaciers descending from its perpetual snows. The stupendous cliffs on its flanks, under which I had camped on the previous night, were very grand, but not more so than those which dipped into the chasm of the Kambachen below. Looking up the valley of the latter, was another wilderness of ice full of enormous moraines, round the bases of which the river wound.

Ascending, we reached an open grassy valley, and overtook the Tibetans who had preceded us, and who had halted here to feed their sheep. A good-looking girl of the party came to ask me for medicine for her husband's eyes, which had suffered from snow-blindness: she brought me a present of snuff, and carried a little child, stark naked, yet warm from the powerful rays of the sun, at nearly 14,000 feet elevation, in December! I prescribed for the man, and gave the mother a bright farthing to hang round the child's neck, which delighted the party. My watch was only wondered at; but a little spring measuring-tape that rolled itself up, struck them dumb, and when I threw it on the ground with the tape out, the mother shrieked and ran away, while the little savage howled after her.

Above, the path up the ascent was blocked with snowbeds, and for several miles we alternately scrambled among rocks and over slippery slopes, to the top of the first ridge, there being two to cross. The first consisted of a ridge of rocks running east and west from a superb sweep of snowy mountains to the north-west, which presented a chaotic scene of blue glacial ice and white snow, through which splintered rocks and beetling crags thrust their black heads. The view into the Kambachen gorge was magnificent, though it did not reveal the very bottom of the valley and its moraines: the black precipices of its opposite flank seemed to rise to the glaciers of Nango, fore-shortened into snow-capped precipices 5000 feet high, amongst which lay the Kambachen pass, bearing north-west by north. Lower down the valley, appeared a broad flat, called Jubla, a halting-place one stage below the village of Kambachen, on the road to Lelyp on the Tambur: it must be a remarkable geological as well as natural feature, for it appeared to jut abruptly and quite horizontally from the black cliffs of the valley.

Looking north, the conical head of Junnoo was just scattering the mists from its snowy shoulders, and standing forth to view, the most magnificent spectacle I ever beheld. It was quite close to me, bearing north-east by east, and subtending an angle of 12 degrees 23, and is much the steepest and most conical of all the peaks of these regions. From whichever side it is viewed, it rises 9000 feet above the general mountain mass of 16,000 feet elevation, towering like a blunt cone, with a short saddle on one side, that dips in a steep cliff: it appeared as if uniformly snowed, from its rocks above 20,000 feet (like those of Kinchinjunga) being of white granite, and not contrasting with the snow. Whether the top is stratified or not, I cannot tell, but waving parallel lines are very conspicuous near it, as shown in the accompanying view.* [The appearance of Mont Cervin, from the Riffelberg, much reminded me of that of Junnoo, from the Choonjerma pass, the former bearing the same relation to Monte Rosa that the latter does to Kinchinjunga. Junnoo, though incomparably the more stupendous mass, not only rising 10,000 feat higher above the sea, but towering 4000 feet higher above the ridge on which it is supported, is not nearly so remarkable in outline, so sharp, or so peaked as is Mount Cervin: it is a very much grander, but far less picturesque object. The whiteness of the sides of Junnoo adds also greatly to its apparent altitude; while the strong relief in which the black cliffs of Mont Cervin protrude through its snowy mantle greatly diminish both its apparent height and distance.]

Illustration—JUNNOO 24,000 FT. FROM CHOONJERMA PASS 16,000 FT. EAST NEPAL.

Looking south as evening drew on, another wonderful spectacle presented itself, similar to that which I described at Sakkiazung, but displayed here on an inconceivably grander scale, with all the effects exaggerated. I saw a sea of mist floating 3000 feet beneath me, just below the upper level of the black pines; the magnificent spurs of the snowy range which I had crossed rising out of it in rugged grandeur as promontories and peninsulas, between which the misty ocean seemed to finger up like the fiords of Norway, or the salt-water lochs of the west of Scotland; whilst islets tailed off from the promontories, rising here and there out of the deceptive elements. I was so high above this mist, that it had not the billowy appearance I saw before, but was a calm unruffled ocean, boundless to the south and west, where the horizon over-arched it. A little to the north of west I discerned the most lofty group of mountains in Nepal* [Called Tsungau by the Bhoteeas. Junnoo is called Kumbo-Kurma by the Hill-men of Nepal.] (mentioned at Chapter VIII), beyond Kinchinjurga, which I believe are on the west flank of the great valley through which the Arun river enters Nepal from Tibet: they were very distant, and subtended so small an angle, that I could not measure them with the sextant and artificial horizon their height, judging from the quantity of snow, must be prodigious.

From 4 to 5 p.m. the temperature was 24 degrees, with a very cold wind; the elevation by the barometer was 15,260 feet, and the dew-point 10.5 degrees, giving the humidity 0.610, and the amount of vapour 1.09 grains in a cubic foot of air; the same elements at Calcutta, at the same hour, being thermometer 66.5 degrees, dew-point 60.5 degrees, humidity 0.840, and weight of vapour 5.9 grains.

I waited for an hour, examining the rocks about the pass, till the coolies should come up, but saw nothing worthy of remark, the natural history and geology being identical with those of Kambachen pass: I then bade adieu to the sublime and majestic peak of Junnoo. Thence we continued at nearly the same level for about four miles, dipping into the broad head of a snowy valley, and ascending to the second pass, which lay to the south-east.

On the left I passed a very curious isolated pillar of rock, amongst the wild crags to the north-east, whose bases we skirted: it resembles the Capuchin on the shoulder of Mont Blanc, as seen from the Jardin. Evening overtook us while still on the snow near the last ascent. As the sun declined, the snow at our feet reflected the most exquisitely delicate peach-bloom hue; and looking west from the top of the pass, the scenery was gorgeous beyond description, for the sun was just plunging into a sea of mist, amongst some cirrhi and stratus, all in a blaze of the ruddiest coppery hue. As it sank, the Nepal, peaks to the right assumed more definite, darker, and gigantic forms, and floods of light shot across the misty ocean, bathing the landscape around me in the most wonderful and indescribable changing tints. As the luminary was vanishing, the whole horizon glowed like copper run from a smelting furnace, and when it had quite disappeared, the little inequalities of the ragged edges of the mist were lighted up and shone like a row of volcanos in the far distance. I have never before or since seen anything, which for sublimity, beauty, and marvellous effects, could compare with what I gazed on that evening from Choonjerma pass. In some of Turner's pictures I have recognized similar effects, caught and fixed by a marvellous effort of genius; such are the fleeting hues over the ice, in his "Whalers," and the ruddy fire in his "Wind, Steam, and Rain," which one almost fears to touch. Dissolving views give some idea of the magic creation and dispersion of the effects, but any combination of science and art can no more recall the scene, than it can the feelings of awe that crept over me, during the hour I spent in solitude amongst these stupendous mountains.

The moon guided us on our descent, which was to the south, obliquely into the Yalloong valley. I was very uneasy about the coolies, who were far behind, and some of them had been frost-bitten in crossing the Kambachen pass. Still I thought the best thing was to push on, and light large fires at the first juniper we should reach. The change, on passing from off the snow to the dark earth and rock, was so bewildering, that I had great difficulty in picking my way. Suddenly we came on a flat with a small tarn, whose waters gleamed illusively in the pale moonlight: the opposite flanks of the valley were so well reflected on its gloomy surface, that we were at once brought to a stand-still on its banks: it looked like a chasm, and whether to jump across it, or go down it, or along it, was the question, so deceptive was the spectral landscape. Its true nature was, however, soon discovered, and we proceeded round it, descending. Of course there was no path, and after some perplexity amongst rocks and ravines, we reached the upper limit of wood, and halted by some bleached juniper-trees, which were soon converted into blazing fires.

I wandered away from my party to listen for the voices of the men who had lingered behind, about whom I was still more anxious, from the very great difficulty they would encounter if, as we did, they should get off the path. The moon was shining clearly in the black heavens; and its bright light, with the pale glare of the surrounding snow, obscured the milky way, and all the smaller stars; whilst the planets appeared to glow with broader orbs than elsewhere, and the great stars flashed steadily and periodically.

Deep black chasms seemed to yawn below, and cliffs rose on all sides, except down the valley, where looking across the Yalloong river, a steep range of mountains rose, seamed with torrents that were just visible like threads of silver coursing down broad landslips. It was a dead calm, and nothing broke the awful silence but the low hoarse murmur of many torrents, whose mingled voices rose and fell as if with the pulsations of the atmosphere; the undulations of which appeared thus to be marked by the ear alone. Sometimes it was the faintest possible murmur, and then it rose swelling and filling the air with sound: the effect was that of being raised from the earth's surface, and again lowered to it; or that of waters advancing and retiring. In such scenes and with such accompaniments, the mind wanders from the real to the ideal, the larger and brighter lamps of heaven lead us to imagine that we have risen from the surface of our globe and are floating through the regions of space, and that the ceaseless murmur of the waters is the Music of the Spheres.

Contemplation amid such soothing sounds and impressive scenes is very seductive, and withal very dangerous, for the temperature was at freezing-point, my feet and legs were wet through, and it was well that I was soon roused from my reveries by the monosyllabic exclamations of my coolies. They were quite knocked up, and came along grunting, and halting every minute to rest, by supporting their loads, still hanging to their backs, on their stout staves. I had still one bottle of brandy left, with which to splice the main brace. It had been repeatedly begged for in vain, and being no longer expected, was received with unfeigned joy. Fortunately with these people a little spirits goes a long way, and I kept half for future emergencies.

We camped at 13,290 feet, the air was calm and mild to the feeling, though the temperature fell to 22.75 degrees. On the following morning we saw two musk-deer,* [There are two species of musk-deer in the Himalaya, besides the Tibetan kind, which appears identical with the Siberian animal originally described by Pallas.] called "Kosturah" by the mountaineers. The musk, which hangs in a pouch near the navel of the male, is the well-known object of traffic with Bengal. This creature ranges between 8000 and 13,000 feet, on the Himalaya, often scenting the air for many hundred yards. It is a pretty grey animal, the size of a roebuck, and something resembling it, with coarse fur, short horns, and two projecting teeth from the upper jaw, said to be used in rooting up the aromatic herbs from which the Bhoteeas believe that it derives the odour of musk. This I much doubt, because the animal never frequents those very lofty regions where the herbs supposed to provide the scent are found, nor have I ever seen signs of any having been so rooted up. The Delphinium glaciale smells strongly and disagreeably of musk, but it is one of the most alpine plants in the world, growing at an elevation of 17,000 feet, far above the limits of the Kosturah. The female and young male are very good eating, much better than any Indian venison I ever tasted, being sweet and tender. Mr. Hodgson once kept a female alive, but it was very wild, and continued so as long as I knew it. Two of my Lepchas gave chase to these animals, and fired many arrows in vain after them: these people are fond of carrying a bow, but are very poor shots.

We descended 3000 feet to the deep valley of the Yalloong river which runs west-by-south to the Tambur, from between Junnoo and Kubra: the path was very bad, over quartz, granite, and gneiss, which cut the shoes and feet severely. The bottom of the valley, which is elevated 10,450 feet, was filled with an immense accumulation of angular gravel and debris of the above rocks, forming on both sides of the river a terrace 400 feet above the stream, which flowed in a furious torrent. The path led over this deposit for a good many miles, and varied exceedingly in height, in some places being evidently increased by landslips, and at others apparently by moraines.

Illustration—TIBETAN CHARM-BOX.



CHAPTER XII.

Yalloong valley—Fiud Kanglanamo pass closed—Change route for the southward—Picrorhiza—View of Kubra—Rhododendron Falconeri—Yalloong river—Junction of gneiss and clay-slate— Cross Yalloong range—View—Descent—Yew—Vegetation—Misty weather—Tongdam village—Khabang—Tropical vegetation— Sidingbah Mountain—View of Kinchinjunga—Yangyading village— Slopes of hills, and courses of rivers—Khabili valley—Ghorkha Havildar's bad conduct—Ascend Singalelah—Plague of ticks— Short commons—Cross Islumbo pass—Boundary of Sikkim—Kulhait valley—Lingeham—Reception by Kajee—Hear of Dr. Campbell's going to meet Rajah—Views in valley—Leave for Teesta river— Tipsy Kajee—Hospitality—Murwa beer—Temples—Acorus Calamus—Long Mendong—Burning of dead—Superstitions—Cross Great Rungeet—Boulders, origin of—Purchase of a dog—Marshes —Lamas—Dismiss Ghorkhas—Bhoteea house—Murwa beer.

On arriving at the bottom we found a party who were travelling with sheep laden with salt; they told us that the Yalloong village, which lay up the valley on the route to the Kanglanamo pass (leading over the south shoulder of Kubra into Sikkim) was deserted, the inhabitants having retired after the October fall of snow to Yankutang, two marches down; also that the Kanglanamo pass was impracticable, being always blocked up by the October fall. I was, therefore, reluctantly obliged to abandon the plan of pursuing that route to Sikkim, and to go south, following the west flank of Singalelah to the first of the many passes over it which I might find open.

These people were very civil, and gave me a handful of the root of one of the many bitter herbs called in Bengal "Teeta," and used as a febrifuge: the present was that of Picrorhiza, a plant allied to Speedwell, which grows at from 12,000 to 15,000 feet elevation, and is a powerful bitter, called "Hoonling" by the Tibetans. They had with them above 100 sheep, of a tall, long-legged, Roman-nosed breed. Each carried upwards of forty pounds of salt, done up in two leather bags, slung on either side, and secured by a band going over the chest, and another round the loins, so that they cannot slip off, when going up or down hill. These sheep are very tame, patient creatures, travelling twelve miles a day with great ease, and being indifferent to rocky or steep ground.

Looking east I had a splendid view of the broad snowy mass of Kubra, blocking up, as it were, the head of the valley with a white screen. Descending to about 10,000 feet, the Abies Brunoniana appeared, with fine trees of Rhododendron Falconeri forty feet high, and with leaves nineteen inches long! while the upper part of the valley was full of Abies Webbiana.

At the elevation of 9000 feet, we crossed to the east bank, and passed the junction of the gneiss and mica slate: the latter crossed the river, striking north-west, and the stream cut a dark chasm-like channel through it, foaming and dashing the spray over the splintered ridges, and the broad water-worn hog-backed masses that projected from its bed. Immense veins of granite permeated the rocks, which were crumpled in the strangest manner: isolated angular blocks of schist had been taken up by the granite in a fluid state, and remained imbedded in it.

The road made great ascents to avoid landslips, and to surmount the enormous piles of debris which encumber this valley more than any other. We encamped at 10,050 feet, on a little flat 1000 feet above the bed of the river, and on its east flank. A Hydrangea was the common small wood, but Abies Webbiana formed the forest, with great Rhododendrons. The weather was foggy, whence I judged that we were in the sea of mist I saw beneath me from the passes; the temperature, considering the elevation, was mild, 37 degrees and 38 degrees, which was partly due to the evolution of heat that accompanies the condensation of these vapours, the atmosphere being loaded with moisture. The thermometer fell to 28 degrees during the night, and in the morning the ground was thickly covered with hoar-frost.

December 7.—We ascended the Yalloong ridge to a saddle 11,000 feet elevation, whence the road dips south to the gloomy gorges of the eastern feeders of the Tambur. Here we bade adieu to the grand alpine scenery, and for several days our course lay in Nepal in a southerly direction, parallel to Singalelah, and crossing every spur and river sent off by that mighty range. The latter flow towards the Tambur, and their beds, for forty or fifty miles are elevated about 3000 or 4000 feet. Few of the spurs are ascended above 5000 feet, but all of them rise to 12,000 or 14,000 feet to the westward, where they join the Singalelah range.

I clambered to the top of a lofty hummock, through a dense thicket of interwoven Rhododendron bushes, the clayey soil under which was slippery from the quantity of dead leaves. I had hoped for a view of the top of Kinchinjunga, which bore north-east, but it was enveloped in clouds, as were all the snows in that direction; to the north-west, however, I obtained bearings of the principal peaks, etc., of the Yangma and Kambachen valleys. To the south and south-east, lofty, rugged and pine-clad mountains rose in confused masses, and white sheets of mist came driving up, clinging to the mountain-tops, and shrouding the landscape with extreme rapidity. The remarkable mountain of Sidingbah bore south-south-east, raising its rounded head above the clouds. I could, however, procure no other good bearing.

The descent from the Yalloong ridge to the Khabili feeders of the Tambur was very steep, and in some places almost precipitous, first through dense woods of silver fir, with Rhod. Falconeri and Hodgsoni, then through Abies Brunoniana, with yew (now covered with red berries) to the region of Magnolias and Rhod. arboreum and barbatum. One bush of the former was in flower, making a gorgeous show. Here also appeared the great oak with lamellated acorns, which I had not seen in the drier valleys to the westward; with many other Dorjiling trees and shrubs. A heavy mist clung to the rank luxuriant foliage, tantalizing from its obscuring all the view. Mica schist replaced the gneiss, and a thick slippery stratum of clay rendered it very difficult to keep one's footing. After so many days of bright sunshine and dry weather, I found this quiet, damp, foggy atmosphere to have a most depressing effect: there was little to interest in the meteorology, the atmospheric fluctuations being far too small; geographical discovery was at an end, and we groped our way along devious paths in wooded valleys, or ascended spurs and ridges, always clouded before noon, and clothed with heavy forest.

At 6000 feet we emerged from the mist, and found ourselves clambering down a deep gully, hemmed in by frightful rocky steeps, which exposed a fine and tolerably continuous section of schistose rocks, striking north-west, and dipping north-east, at a very high angle.

At the bottom three furious torrents met: we descended the course of one of them, over slanting precipices, or trees lashed to the rocks, and after a most winding course our path conducted us to the village of Tarbu, high above a feeder of the Khabili river, which flows west, joining the Tambur three days' march lower down. Having no food, we had made a very long and difficult march to this place, but finding none here, proceeded on to Tonghem village on the Khabili, descending through thickets of Rhod. arboreum to the elevation of 5,560.

This village, or spur, called "Tonghem" by the Limboos, and "Yankutang" by the Bhoteeas, is the winter resort of the inhabitants of the upper Yalloong valley: they received us very kindly, sold us two fowls, and rice enough to last for one or two days, which was all they could spare, and gave me a good deal of information. I found that the Kanglanamo pass had been disused since the Nepal war, that it was very lofty, and always closed in October.

The night was fine, clear, and warm, but the radiation so powerful that the grass was coated with ice the following morning, though the thermometer did not fall below 33 degrees. The next day the sun rose with great power, and the vegetation reeked and steamed with the heat. Crossing the river, we first made a considerable descent, and then ascended a ridge to 5,750 feet, through a thick jungle of Camellia, Eurya, and small oak: from the top I obtained bearings of Yalloong and Choonjerma pass, and had also glimpses of the Kinchin range through a tantalizing jungle; after which a very winding and fatiguing up-and-down march southwards brought us to the village of Khabang, in the magnificent valley of the Tawa, about 800 feet above the river, and 5,500 feet above the sea.

I halted here for a day, to refresh the people, and if possible to obtain some food. I hoped, too, to find a pass into Sikkim, east over Singalelah, but was disappointed: if there had ever been one, it had been closed since the Nepal war; and there was none, for several marches further south, which would conduct us to the Iwa branch of the Khabili.

Khabang is a village of Geroongs, or shepherds, who pasture their flocks on the hills and higher valleys during summer, and bring them down to this elevation in winter: the ground was consequently infested with a tick, equal in size to that so common in the bushes, and quite as troublesome, but of a different species.

The temperature rose to 72 degrees, and the black-bulb thermometer to 140 degrees. Magnolias and various almost tropical trees were common, and the herbaceous vegetation was that of low elevations. Large sugar-cane (Saccharum), palm (Wallichia), and wild plantains grew near the river, and Rhod. arboreum was very common on dry slopes of mica-slate rocks, with the gorgeous and sweet-scented Luculia gratissima.

Up the valley of the Tawa the view was very grand of a magnificent rocky mountain called Sidingbah, bearing south-east by south, on a spur of the Singalelah range that runs westerly, and forms the south flank of the Tawa, and the north of the Khabili valleys. This mountain is fully 12,000 feet high, crested with rock and ragged black forest, which, on the north flank, extends to its base: to the eastward, the bare ridges of Singalelah were patched with snow, below which they too were clothed with black pines.

From the opposite side of the Tawa to Khabang (alt. 6,020 feet), I was, during our march southwards, most fortunate in obtaining a splendid view of Kinchinjunga (bearing north-east by north), with its associates, rising over the dark mass of Singalelah, its flanks showing like tier above tier of green glaciers: its distance was fully twenty-five miles, and as only about 7000 feet or 8000 feet from its summit were visible, and Kubra was foreshortened against it, its appearance was not grand; added to which, its top was round and hummocky, not broken into peaks, as when seen from the south and east. Villages and cultivation became more frequent as we proceeded southward, and our daily marches were up ridges, and down into deep valleys, with feeders from the flanks of Sidingbah to the Tambur. We passed through the village of Tchonboong, and camped at Yangyading (4,100 feet), sighted Yamroop, a large village and military post to the west of our route, crossed the Pangwa river, and reached the valley of the Khabili. During this part of the journey, I did not once see the Tambur river, though I was day after day marching only seven to ten miles distant from it, so uneven is the country. The mountains around Taptiatok, Mywa Guola, and Chingtam, were pointed out to me, but they presented no recognizable feature.

I often looked for some slope, or strike of the slopes of the spurs, in any one valley, or that should prevail through several, but could seldom trace any, except on one or two occasions, at low elevations. Looking here across the valleys, there was a tendency in the gentle slopes of the spurs to have plane faces dipping north-east, and to be bounded by a line of cliffs striking north-west, and facing the south-east. In such arrangements, the upheaved cliffs may be supposed to represent parallel lines of faults, dislocation, or rupture, but I could never trace any secondary valleys at right angles to these. There is no such uniformity of strike as to give to the rivers a zig-zag course of any regularity, or one having any apparent dependence on a prevailing arrangement of the rocks; for, though the strike of the chlorite and clay-slate at elevations below 6000 feet along its course, is certainly north-west, with a dip to north-east, the flexures of the river, as projected on the map, deviate very widely from these directions.

The valley of the Khabili is very grand, broad, open, and intersected by many streams and cultivated spurs: the road from Yamroop to Sikkim, once well frequented, runs up its north flank, and though it was long closed we determined to follow and clear it.

On the 11th of December we camped near the village of Sablakoo (4,680 feet), and procured five days' food, to last us as far as the first Sikkim village. Thence we proceeded eastward up the valley, but descending to the Iwa, an affluent of the Khabili, through a tropical vegetation of Pinus longifolia, Phyllanthus Emblica, dwarf date-palm, etc.

Gneiss was here the prevailing rock, uniformly dipping north-east 20 degrees, and striking north-west. The same rock no doubt forms the mass Sidingbah, which reared its head 8000 feet above the Iwa river, by whose bed we camped at 3,780 feet. Sand-flies abounded, and were most troublesome: troops of large monkeys were skipping about, and the whole scene was thoroughly tropical; still, the thermometer fell to 38 degrees in the night, with heavy dew.

Though we passed numerous villages, I found unusual difficulty in getting provision, and received none of the presents so uniformly brought by the villagers to a stranger. I was not long in discovering, to my great mortification, that these were appropriated by the Ghorkha Havildar, who seemed to have profited by our many days of short allowance, and diverted the current of hospitality from me to himself. His coolies I saw groaning under heavy burdens, when those of my people were light; and the truth only came out when he had the impudence to attempt to impose a part of his coolies' loads on mine, to enable the former to carry more food, whilst he was pretending that he used every exertion to procure me a scanty supply of rice with my limited stock of money. I had treated this man and his soldiers with the utmost kindness, even nursing them and clothing them from my own stock of flannels, when sick and shivering amongst the snows. Though a high caste Hindoo, and one who assumed Brahmin rank, he had, I found, no objection to eat forbidden things in secret; and now that we were travelling amongst Hindoos, his caste obtained him everything, while money alone availed me. I took him roundly to task for his treachery, which caused him secretly to throw away a leg of mutton he had concealed; I also threatened to expose the humbug of his pretension to caste, but it was then too late to procure more food. Having hitherto much liked this man, and fully trusted him, I was greatly pained by his conduct.

We proceeded east for three days, up the valley, through gloomy forests of tropical trees below 5000 feet; and ascended to oaks and magnolias at 6000 feet. The path was soon obstructed, and we had to tear and cut our way, from 6000 to 10,000 feet, which took two days' very hard work. Ticks swarmed in the small bamboo jungle, and my body was covered with these loathsome insects, which got into my bed and hair, and even attached themselves to my eyelids during the night, when the constant annoyance and irritation completely banished sleep. In the daytime they penetrated my trousers, piercing to my body in many places, so that I repeatedly took off as many as twelve at one time. It is indeed marvellous how so large an insect can painlessly insert a stout barbed proboscis, which requires great force to extract it, and causes severe smarting in the operation. What the ticks feed upon in these humid forests is a perfect mystery to me, for from 6000 to 9000 feet they literally swarmed, where there was neither path nor animal life. They were, however, more tolerable than a commoner species of parasite, which I found it impossible to escape from, all classes of mountaineers being infested with it.

On the 14th, after an arduous ascent through the pathless jungle, we camped at 9,300 feet on a narrow spur, in a dense forest, amongst immense loose blocks of gneiss. The weather was foggy and rainy, and the wind cold. I ate the last supply of animal food, a miserable starved pullet, with rice and Chili vinegar; my tea, sugar, and all other superfluities having been long before exhausted.

On the following morning, we crossed the Islumbo pass over Singalelah into Sikkim, the elevation being 11,000 feet. Above our camp the trees were few and stunted, and we quickly emerged from the forest on a rocky and grassy ridge, covered with withered Saxifrages, Umbelliferae, Parnassia, Hypericum, etc. There were no pines on either side of the pass; a very remarkable peculiarity of the damp mountains of Sikkim, which I have elsewhere had occasion to notice: we had left Pinus longifolia (a far from common tree in these valleys) at 3000 feet in the Tawa three days before, and ascended to 11,000 feet without passing a coniferous tree of any kind, except a few yews, at 9000 feet, covered with red berries.

The top of the pass was broad, grassy, and bushy with dwarf Bamboo, Rose, and Berberry, in great abundance, covered with mosses and lichens: it had been raining hard all the morning, and the vegetation was coated with ice: a dense fog obscured everything, and a violent south-east wind blew over the pass in our teeth. I collected some very curious and beautiful mosses, putting these frozen treasures into my box, in the form of exquisitely beautiful glass ornaments, or mosses frosted with silver.

A few stones marked the boundary between Nepal and Sikkim, where I halted for half an hour, and hung up my instruments: the temperature was 32 degrees.

We descended rapidly, proceeding eastward down the broad valley of the Kulhait river, an affluent of the Great Rungeet; and as it had begun to sleet and snow hard, we continued until we reached 6,400 feet before camping.

On the following day we proceeded down the valley, and reached habitations at 4000 feet: passing many villages and much cultivation, we crossed the river, and ascended by 7 p.m., to the village of Lingcham, just below the convent of Changachelling, very tired and hungry. Bad weather had set in, and it was pitch dark and raining hard when we arrived; but the Kajee, or head man, had sent out a party with torches to conduct us, and he gave us a most hospitable reception, honoured us with a salute of musketry, and brought abundance of milk, eggs, fowls, plantains, and Murwa beer. Plenty of news was awaiting me here, and a messenger with letters was three marches further north, at Yoksun, waiting my expected return over the Kanglanamo pass. Dr. Campbell, I was told, had left Dorjiling; and was en route to meet the Rajah at Bhomsong on the Teesta river, where no European had ever yet been; and as the Sikkim authorities had for sixteen years steadily rejected every overture for a friendly interview, and even refused to allow the agent of the Governor-General to enter their dominions, it was evident that grave doings were pending. I knew that Dr. Campbell had long used every exertion to bring the Sikkim Rajah to a friendly conference, without having to force his way into the country for the purpose, but in vain. It will hardly be believed that though this chief's dominions were redeemed by us from the Nepalese and given back to him; though we had bound ourselves by a treaty to support him on his throne, and to defend him against the Nepalese on the west, the Bhutan people on the east, and the Tibetans on the north; and though the terms of the treaty stipulated for free intercourse, mutual protection, and friendship; the Sikkim authorities had hitherto been allowed to obstruct all intercourse, and in every way to treat the Governor-General's agent and the East India Company with contempt. An affectation of timidity, mistrust, and ignorance was assumed for the purpose of deception, and as a cloak for every insult and resistance to the terms of our treaty, and it was quoted by the Government in answer to every remonstrance on the part of their resident agent at Dorjiling.

On the following morning the Kajee waited on me with a magnificent present of a calf, a kid, fowls, eggs, rice, oranges, plantains, egg-apples, Indian corn, yams, onions, tomatos, parsley, fennel, turmeric, rancid butter, milk, and, lastly, a coolie-load of fermenting millet-seeds, wherewith to make the favourite Murwa beer. In the evening two lads arrived from Dorjiling, who had been sent a week beforehand by my kind and thoughtful friend, Mr. Hodgson, with provisions and money.

The valley of the Kulhait is one o the finest in Sikkim, and it is accordingly the site of two of the oldest and richest conventual establishments. Its length is sixteen miles, from the Islumbo pass to the Great Rungeet, for ten of which it is inhabited, the villages being invariably on long meridional spurs that project north and south from either flank; they are about 2000 feet above the river, and from 4,500 to 5000 feet above the sea. Except where these spurs project, the flanks of the valley are very steep, the mountains rising to 7000 or 8000 feet.

Looking from any spur, up or down the valley, five or six others might be seen on each side of the river, at very nearly the same average level, all presenting great uniformity of contour, namely, a gentle slope towards the centre of the valley, and then an abrupt descent to the river. They were about a quarter of a mile broad at the widest, and often narrower, and a mile or so long; some parts of their surfaces and sides were quite flat, and occasionally occupied by marshes or ponds. Cultivation is almost confined to these spurs, and is carried on both on their summits and steep flanks; between every two is a very steep gulley and water-course. The timber has long since been either wholly or partially cleared from the tops, but, to a great extent, still clothes their flanks and the intervening gorges. I have been particular in describing these spurs, because it is impossible to survey them without ascribing their comparative uniformity of level to the action of water. Similar ones are characteristic features of the valleys of Sikkim between 2000 and 8000 feet, and are rendered conspicuous by being always sites for villages and cultivation: the soil is a vegetable mould, over a deep stratum of red clay.

I am far from supposing that any geologically recent action of the sea has levelled these spurs; but as the great chain of the Himalaya has risen from the ocean, and as every part of it has been subjected to sea-action, it is quite conceivable that intervals of rest during the periods of elevation or submergence would effect their levelling. In a mountain mass so tumbled as is that of Sikkim, any level surface, or approach to it, demands study; and when, as in the Kulhait valley, we find several similar spurs with comparatively flat tops, to occupy about the same level, it is necessary to look for some levelling cause. The action of denudation is still progressing with astonishing rapidity, under an annual fall of from 100 to 150 inches of rain; but its tendency is to obliterate all such phenomena, and to give sharp, rugged outlines to these spurs, in spite of the conservative effects of vegetation.

The weather at Lingcham was gloomy, cold, and damp, with much rain and fog, and the mean temperature (45.25 degrees) was cold for the elevation (4,860 feet): 52.5 degrees was the highest temperature observed, and 39 degrees the lowest.

A letter from Dr. Campbell reached me three days after my arrival, begging me to cross the country to the Teesta river, and meet him at Bhomsong, on its west bank, where he was awaiting my arrival. I therefore left on the 20th of December, accompanied by my friend the Kajee, who was going to pay his respects to the Rajah. He was constantly followed by a lad, carrying a bamboo of Murwa beer slung round his neck, with which he kept himself always groggy. His dress was thoroughly Lepcha, and highly picturesque, consisting of a very broad-brimmed round-crowned bamboo-platted hat, scarlet jacket, and blue-striped cloth shirt, bare feet, long knife, bow and quiver, rings and earrings, and a long pigtail. He spoke no Hindoostanee, but was very communicative through my interpreters.

Leaving the Lingcham spur, we passed steep cliffs of mica and schist, covered with brushwood and long grass, about 1000 feet above which the Changachelling convent is perched. Crossing a torrent, we came to the next village, on the spur of Kurziuk, where I was met by a deputation of women, sent by the Lamas of Changachelling, bearing enormous loads of oranges, rice, milk, butter, ghee, and the everflowing Murwa beer.

The villagers had erected a shady bower for me to rest under, of leaves and branches, and had fitted up a little bamboo stage, on which to squat cross-legged as they do, or to hang my legs from, if I preferred: after conducting me to this, the parties advanced and piled their cumbrous presents on the ground, bowed, and retired; they were succeeded by the beer-carrier, who plunged a clean drinking-tube to the bottom of the steaming bamboo jug (described in Chapter VII), and held it to my mouth, then placing it by my side, he bowed and withdrew. Nothing can be more fascinating than the simple manners of these kind people, who really love hospitality for its own sake, and make the stranger feel himself welcome. Just now too, the Durbar had ordered every attention to be paid me; and I hardly passed a village however small, without receiving a present, or a cottage, where beer was not offered. This I found a most grateful beverage; and of the occasional rests under leafy screens during a hot day's march, and sips at the bamboo jug, I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance. Happily the liquor is very weak, and except by swilling, as my friend the Kajee did, it would be impossible to get fuddled by it.

At Kurziuk I was met by a most respectable Lepcha, who, as a sort of compliment, sent his son to escort us to the next village and spur of Pemiongchi, to reach which we crossed another gorge, of which the situation and features were quite similar to those of Kurziuk and Lingcham.

The Pemiongchi and Changachelling convents and temples stand a few miles apart, on the ridge forming the north flank of the Kulhait valley; and as they will be described hereafter, I now only allude to the village, which is fully 1000 feet below the convent, and large and populous.

At Pemiongchi a superior Lama met me with another overwhelming present: he was a most jolly fat monk, shaven and girdled, and dressed in a scarlet gown: my Lepchas kotowed to him, and he blessed them by the laying on of hands.

Illustration—PEMIONGCHI GOOMPA AND CHAITS.

There is a marsh on this spur, full of the common English Acorus Calamus, or sweet-flag, whose roots being very aromatic, are used in griping disorders of men and cattle. Hence we descended suddenly to the Great Rungeet, which we reached at its junction with the Kulhait: the path was very steep and slippery, owing to micaceous rocks, and led along the side of an enormous Mendong,* [This remarkable structure, called the Kaysing Mendong, is 200 yards long, 10 feet high, and 6 or 8 feet broad: it is built of flat, slaty stones, and both faces are covered with inscribed slates, of which there are upwards of 700, and the inscriptions, chiefly "Om Mani," etc., are in both the Uchen and Lencha Ranja characters of Tibet. A tall stone, nine feet high, covered also with inscriptions, terminates it at the lower end.] which ran down the hill for several hundred yards, and had a large chait at each end, with several smaller ones at intervals. Throughout its length were innumerable inscriptions of "Om Mani Padmi om," with well carved figures of Boodh in his many incarnations, besides Lamas, etc. At the lower end was a great flat area, on which are burnt the bodies of Sikkim people of consequence: the poorer people are buried, the richer burned, and their ashes scattered or interred, but not in graves proper, of which there are none. Nor are there any signs of Lepcha interment throughout Sikkim; though chaits are erected to the memory of the departed, they have no necessary connection with the remains, and generally none at all. Corpses in Sikkim are never cut to pieces and thrown into lakes, or exposed on hills for the kites and crows to devour, as is the case in Tibet.

We passed some curious masses of crumpled chlorite slate, presenting deep canals or furrows, along which a demon once drained all the water from the Pemiongchi spur, to the great annoyance of the villagers: the Lamas, however, on choosing this as a site for their temples, easily confounded the machinations of the evil spirit, who, in the eyes of the simple Lepchas, was answerable for all the mischief.

I crossed the Great Rungeet at 1840 feet above the sea, where its bed was twenty yards in width; a rude bridge, composed of two culms of bamboo and a handrail, conducted me to the other side, where we camped (on the east bank) in a thick tropical jungle. In the evening I walked down the banks of the river, which flowed in a deep gorge, cumbered with enormous boulders of granite, clay-slate, and mica-slate; the rocks in situ were all of the latter description, highly inclined, and much dislocated. Some of the boulders were fully ten feet in diameter, permeated and altered very much by granite veins which had evidently been injected when molten, and had taken up angular masses of the chlorite which remained, as it were, suspended in the veins.

It is not so easy to account for the present position of these blocks of granite, a rock not common at elevations below 10,000 feet. They have been transported from a considerable distance in the interior of the lofty valley to the north, and have descended not less than 8000 feet, and travelled fully fifteen miles in a straight line, or perhaps forty along the river bed. It may be supposed that moraines have transported them to 8000 feet (the lowest limit of apparent moraines), and the power of river water carried them further; if so, the rivers must have been of much greater volume formerly than they are now.

Our camp was on a gravel flat, like those of the Nepal valleys, about sixty feet above the river; its temperature was 52 degrees, which felt cool when bathing.

From the river we proceeded west, following a steep and clayey ascent up the end of a very long spur, from the lofty mountain range called Mungbreu, dividing the Great Rungeet from the Teesta. We ascended by a narrow path, accomplishing 2,500 feet in an hour and a quarter, walking slowly but steadily, without resting; this I always found a heavy pull in a hot climate.

At about 4000 feet above the sea, the spur became more open and flat, like those of the Kulhait valley, with alternate slopes and comparative flats: from this elevation the view north, south, and west, was very fine; below us flowed the river, and a few miles up it was the conical wooded hill of Tassiding, rising abruptly from a fork of the deep river gorge, crowned with its curious temples and mendongs, and bristling with chaits: on it is the oldest monastery in Sikkim, occupying a singularly picturesque and prominent position. North of this spur, and similar to it, lay that of Raklang, with the temple and monastery of the same name, at about this elevation. In front, looking west, across the Great Rungeet, were the monasteries of Changachelling and Pemiongchi, perched aloft; and south of these were the flat-topped spurs of the Kulhait valley, with their villages, and the great mendong which I had passed on the previous day, running like a white line down the spur. To the north, beyond Tassiding, were two other monasteries, Doobdee and Sunnook, both apparently placed on the lower wooded flanks of Kinchinjunga; whilst close by was Dholing, the seventh religious establishment now in sight.

We halted at a good wooden house to refresh ourselves with Murwa beer, where I saw a woman with cancer in the face, an uncommon complaint in this country. I here bought a little black puppy, to be my future companion in Sikkim: he was of a breed between the famous Tibet mastiff and the common Sikkim hunting-dog, which is a variety of the sorry race called Pariah in the plains. Being only a few weeks old, he looked a mere bundle of black fur; and I carried him off, for he could not walk.

We camped at the village of Lingdam (alt. 5,550 feet), occupying a flat, and surrounded by extensive pools of water (for this country) containing Acorus, Potamogeton, and duckweed. Such ponds I have often met with on these terraces, and they are very remarkable, not being dammed in by any conspicuous barrier, but simply occupying depressions in the surface, from which, as I have repeatedly observed, the land dips rapidly to the valleys below.

This being the high-road from Tumloong or Sikkim Durbar (the capital, and Rajah's residence) to the numerous monasteries which I had seen, we passed many Lamas and monks on their way home from Tumloong, where they had gone to be present at the marriage of the Tupgain Lama, the eldest son of the Rajah. A dispensation having previously been procured from Lhassa, this marriage had been effected by the Lamas, in order to counteract the efforts of the Dewan, who sought to exercise an undue influence over the Rajah and his family. The Tupgain Lama having only spiritual authority, and being bound to celibacy, the temporal authority devolved on the second son, who was heir apparent of Sikkim; he, however, having died, an illegitimate son of the Rajah was favoured by the Dewan as heir apparent. The bride was brought from Tibet, and the marriage party were feasted for eighteen days at the Rajah's expense. All the Lamas whom I met were clad in red robes, with girdles, and were shaven, with bare feet and heads, or mitred; they wore rosaries of onyx, turquoise, quartz, lapis lazuli, coral, glass, amber, or wood, especially yellow berberry and sandal-wood: some had staves, and one a trident like an eel-fork, on a long staff, an emblem of the Hindoo Trinity, called Trisool Mahadeo, which represents Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu, in Hindoo; and Boodh, Dhurma, and Sunga, in Boodhist theology. All were on foot, indeed ponies are seldom used in this country; the Lamas, however, walked with becoming gravity and indifference to all around them.

The Kajee waited upon me in the evening; full of importance, having just received a letter from his Rajah, which he wished to communicate to me in private; so I accompanied him to a house close by, where he was a guest, when the secret came out, that his highness was dreadfully alarmed at my coming with the two Ghorka Sepoys, whom I accordingly dismissed.

The house was of the usual Bhoteea form, of wood, well built on posts, one-storied, containing a single apartment hung round with bows, quivers, shields, baskets of rice, and cornucopias of Indian corn, the handsomest and most generous looking of all the Cerealia. The whole party were deep in a carouse on Murwa beer, and I saw the operation of making it. The millet-seed is moistened, and ferments for two days: sufficient for a day's allowance is then put into a vessel of wicker-work, lined with India-rubber to make it water-tight; and boiling water is poured on it with a ladle of gourd, from a huge iron cauldron that stands all day over the fire. The fluid, when quite fresh, tastes like negus of Cape sherry, rather sour. At this season the whole population are swilling, whether at home or travelling, and heaps of the red-brown husks are seen by the side of all the paths.

Illustration—SIKKIM LAMAS WITH PRAYING CYLINDER AND DORJE; THE LATERAL FIGURES ARE MONKS OR GYLONGS.



CHAPTER XIII.

Raklang pass—Uses of nettles—Edible plants—Lepcha war— Do-mani stone—Neongong—Teesta valley—Pony, saddle, etc.— Meet Campbell—Vegetation and scenery—Presents—Visit of Dewan —Characters of Rajah and Dewan—Accounts of Tibet—Lhassa— Siling—Tricks of Dewan—Walk up Teesta—Audience of Rajah— Lamas—Kajees—Tchebu Lama, his character and position—Effects of interview—Heir-apparent—Dewan's house—Guitar—Weather —Fall of river—Tibet officers—Gigantic trees—Neongong lake —Mainom, ascent of—Vegetation—Camp on snow—Silver fire— View from top—Kinchin, etc.—Geology—Vapours—Sunset effect —Elevation—Temperature, etc.—Lamas of Neongong—Temples— Religious festival—Bamboo, flowering—Recross pass of Raklang— Numerous temples, villages, etc.—Domestic animals—Descent to Great Rungeet.

On the following morning, after receiving the usual presents from the Lamas of Dholing, and from a large posse of women belonging to the village of Barphiung, close by, we ascended the Raklang pass, which crosses the range dividing the waters of the Teesta from those of the Great Rungeet. The Kajee still kept beside me, and proved a lively companion: seeing me continually plucking and noting plants, he gave me much local information about them. He told me the uses made of the fibres of the various nettles; some being twisted for bowstrings, others as a thread for sewing and weaving; while many are eaten raw and in soups, especially the numerous little succulent species. The great yellow-flowered Begonia was abundant, and he cut its juicy stalks to make sauce (as we do apple-sauce) for some pork which he expected to get at Bhomsong; the taste is acid and very pleasant. The large succulent fern, called Botrychium,* [Botrychium Virginicum, Linn. This fern is eaten abundantly by the New Zealanders: its distribution is most remarkable, being found very rarely indeed in Europe, and in Norway only. It abounds in many parts of the Southern United States, the Andes of Mexico, etc., in the Himalaya mountains, Australia, and New Zealand.] grew here plentifully; it is boiled and eaten, both here and in New Zealand. Ferns are more commonly used for food than is supposed. In Calcutta the Hindoos boil young tops of a Polypodium with their shrimp curries; and both in Sikkim and Nepal the watery tubers of an Aspidium are abundantly eaten. So also the pulp of one tree-fern affords food, but only in times of scarcity, as does that of another species in New Zealand (Cyathea medullaris): the pith of all is composed of a coarse sago, that is to say, of cellular tissue with starch granules.

A thick forest of Dorjiling vegetation covers the summit, which is only 6,800 feet above the sea: it is a saddle, connecting the lofty mountain of Mainom (alt. 11,000 feet) to the north, with Tendong (alt. 8,663 feet) to the south. Both these mountains are on a range which is continuous with Kinchinjunga, projecting from it down into the very heart of Sikkim. A considerable stand was made here by the Lepchas during the Nepal war in 1787; they defended the pass with their arrows for some hours, and then retired towards the Teesta, making a second stand lower down, at a place pointed out to me, where rocks on either side gave them the same advantages. The Nepalese, however, advanced to the Teesta, and then retired with little loss.

Unfortunately a thick mist and heavy rain cut off all view of the Teesta valley, and the mountains of Chola to the eastward; which I much regretted.

Descending by a very steep, slippery path, we came to a fine mass of slaty gneiss, thirty feet long and thirteen feet high; not in situ, but lying on the mountain side: on its sloping face was carved in enormous characters, "Om Mani Padmi om"; of which letters the top-strokes afford an uncertain footing to the enthusiast who is willing to purchase a good metempsychosis by walking along the slope, with his heels or toes in their cavities. A small inscription in one corner is said to imply that this was the work of a pious monk of Raklang; and the stone is called "Do-mani," literally, "stone of prayer."

Illustration—DO-MANI STONE.

The rocks and peaks of Mainom are said to overhang the descent here with grandeur; but the continued rain hid everything but a curious shivered peak, apparently of chlorite schist, which was close by, and reflected a green colour it is of course reported to be of turquoise, and inaccessible. Descending, the rocks became more micaceous, with broad seams of pipe-clay, originating in decomposed beds of felspathic gneiss: the natives used this to whitewash and mortar their temples.

I passed the monastery of Neongong, the monks of which were building a new temple; and came to bring me a large present. Below it is a pretty little lake, about 100 yards across, fringed with brushwood. We camped at the village of Nampok, 4,370 feet above the sea; all thoroughly sodden with rain.

During the night much snow had fallen at and above 9000 feet, but the weather cleared on the following morning, and disclosed the top of Mainom, rising close above my camp, in a series of rugged shivered peaks, crested with pines, which looked like statues of snow: to all other quarters this mountain presents a very gently sloping outline. Up the Teesta valley there was a pretty peep of snowy mountains, bearing north 35 degrees east, of no great height.

I was met by a messenger from Dr. Campbell who told me he was waiting breakfast; so I left my party, and, accompanied by the Kajee and Meepo, hurried down to the valley of the Rungoon (which flows east to the Teesta), through a fine forest of tropical trees; passing the villages of Broom* [On the top of the ridge above Broom, a tall stone is erected by the side of the path, covered with private marks, indicating the height of various individuals who are accustomed to measure themselves thus; there was but one mark above 5 feet 7 inches, and that was 6 inches higher. It turned out to be Campbell's, who had passed a few days before, and was thus proved to top the natives of Sikkim by a long way.] and Lingo, to the spur of that name; where I was met by a servant of the Sikkim Dewan's, with a pony for my use. I stared at the animal, and felt inclined to ask what he had to do here, where it was difficult enough to walk up and down slippery slopes, amongst boulders of rock, heavy forest, and foaming torrents; but I was little aware of what these beasts could accomplish. The Tartar saddle was imported from Tibet, and certainly a curiosity; once—but a long time ago—it must have been very handsome; it was high-peaked, covered with shagreen and silvered ornaments, wretchedly girthed, and with great stirrups attached to short leathers. The bridle and head-gear were much too complicated for description; there were good leather, raw hide, hair-rope, and scarlet worsted all brought into use; the bit was the ordinary Asiatic one, jointed, and with two rings. I mounted on one side, and at once rolled over, saddle and all, to the other; the pony standing quite still. I preferred walking; but Dr. Campbell had begged of me to use the pony, as the Dewan had procured and sent it at great trouble: I, however, had it led till I was close to Bhomsong, when I was hoisted into the saddle and balanced on it, with my toes in the stirrups and my knees up to my breast; twice, on the steep descent to the river, my saddle and I were thrown on the pony's neck; in these awkward emergencies I was assisted by a man on each side, who supported my weight on my elbows: they seemed well accustomed to easing mounted ponies down hill without giving the rider the trouble of dismounting. Thus I entered Dr. Campbell's camp at Bhomsong, to the pride and delight of my attendants; and received a hearty welcome from my old friend, who covered me with congratulations on the successful issue of a journey which, at this season, and under such difficulties and discouragements, he had hardly thought feasible.

Dr. Campbell's tent was pitched in an orange-grove, occupying a flat on the west bank of the Teesta, close to a small enclosure of pine-apples, with a pomegranate tree in the middle. The valley is very narrow, and the vegetation wholly tropical, consisting of two species of oak, several palms, rattan-cane (screw-pine), Pandanus, tall grasses, and all the natives of dense hot jungles. The river is a grand feature, broad, rocky, deep, swift, and broken by enormous boulders of rock; its waters were of a pale opal green, probably from the materials of the soft micaceous rocks through which it flows.