ce of Tibet - Inhabitants - Dresses - Women's ornaments - Blackening faces - Coral - Tents - Elevation of Palung - Lama - Shawl-wool goats - Shearing - Siberian plants - Height of glaciers, and perpet

- Rageu - Heat of Climate - Velocity and volume of rivers measured - Leave for Lachoong valley - Keadom - General features

] it is marked by cairns of stone, some rudely fashioned into chaits, covered with votive rags on wands of bamboo. I made the altitude by barometer 15,745 feet above the sea, and by boiling water, 15,694 feet, the water boiling at 184.1 degrees; the temperature of the air between 2.40 and 4 p.m. varied from 41.3 degrees to 42.5 degrees, the dew-point 39.8 degrees; that of the Lachen was 47 degrees, which was remarkably high. We were bitterly cold; as the previous rain had wetted us through, and a keen wind was blowing up the valley. The continued mist and

saxifrages, Sedum, primrose, Herminium, Polygonum, Campanula, Umbelliferae, grasses and Carices: of woolly or hairy once, Anemone, Artemisia, Myosotis, Draba, Potentilla, and several Compositae, etc.] growing in matted tufts level with the ground. The greater portion had no woolly covering; nor did I find any of the cottony species of Saussurea, which are so common on the wetter mountains to the southward. Some most delicate

. Kinchinjhow on the contrary was of gneiss, with granite veins: the stri

llows, which worked by a slit that was opened by the hand in the act of raising; when inflated, the hole was closed, and the skin

moon, which, with the glare from the snows, lighted up the valley, and revealed magnificent glimpses of the majestic mountains. As the moon sank, and we descended the narrowing valley, darkness came on, and with a boy to lead my sure-footed pony, I was at liberty uninterruptedly to reflect on the events of a day, on which I had attained the object of

ny rapid streams. The Soubah's little shaggy steed had carried his portly frame (fully fifteen stone weight) t

rous Natural orders and genera were, Cruciferae 10; Compositae 20; Ranunculaceae 10; Alsineae 9; Astragali 10; Potentillae 8; grasses 12; Carices 15; Pedicularis 7; Boragineae 7.] Letters arri

first thousand feet, flowing in a narrow gorge, between sloping, grassy, and rocky hills, on which large herds of yaks were feeding, tended by women and children, whose black tents were scattered about. The yak-calves left their mothers to run beside our ponies, which became unmanageable, being almost callous to the bi

ist intervening countries.] an Onosma which yields a purple dye, Orchis, and species of Androsace; while the slopes were clothed with the spikenard and purple Pedicularis, and the moist grounds with yellow cowslip and long grass. A sudden bend in the valley opened a superb view to the north, of the full front of Kinchinjhow, extending for four or fiv

d from the base of Kinchinjhow. Its surface, though very level for so mountainous a country, is yet varied with open valleys and sloping hills, 500 to 700 feet high: it is bounded on the west by low rounded spurs from Kinchinjhow, that form the flank of the Lachen valley; while on the east it is separated from Chango-khang by the Chachoo, which cuts a deep east and west trench along the base of Kinchinjhow, and then turns south

n much modified by glacial action. I was forcibly reminded of them by the slopes of the Wengern Alp, but those of Palung are far mor

op, we soon reached an enclosure of stone dykes, within which the black tents were pitched. The dogs were of immense size, and ragged, like the yaks, from their winter coat hanging to th

IRLS (THE OUTER FIGUR

omen's with a pigment of grease as a protection from the wind. The men were dressed as usual, in the blanket-cloak, with brass pipes, long knives, flint, steel, and amulets; the women wore similar, but shorter cloaks, with silver and copper girdles, trowsers, and flannel boots. Their head-dresses were very remarkable. A circular band of plaited yak's hair was attached to the back hair, and encircled the head like a saint's glory,* [I find in Ermann's "Siberia" (i., p. 210), that the married women of Yekaterinberg wear a head-dress like an ancient glory covered with jewels, whilst the unmarried ones pl

nd coins. This custom of decorating children is very common amongst half-civilised people; and the coral is, perhaps, one of the last relics of a barbarous age that is retained amongst ourselves. One mother was nursing her baby, and churning at the same time, by rolling th

erneath. Saddles, horse-cloths, and the usual accoutrements and implements of a nomade people, all of the rudest description, hung about: there was no bed or stool, but Chinese rugs for sleeping on. I boiled water on the fire-place; its temperature

ts throughout Tibet, on the occasion of religious festivals, is alluded to by MM. Huc and Gabet.] The tents being insupportably noisome, I preferred partaking of the buttered brick-tea in the open air; after which, I went to see the shawl-wool goats sheared in a pen close by. There are two varieties: one is a large animal, with great horns, called "Rappoo;"* [This is the "Changra;" and the smaller the "Chyapu" of Mr. Hodgson's catalogue. (See "British Museum Catalogue.")] the

come to maturity this year, as I found on again visiting this spot in October; but their tops had afforded the poor Tibetans some good vegetables. The mean temperature of the three summer months at Palung is probably about 40 degrees,

erds are all stall-fed, with long grass, cut on the marshy banks of the Yaru. Snow is

ding on them, chiefly upon small tufted sedges, allied to the English Carex pilularis, which here forms the greatest part of

ikkim it is found at the same level. Specimens of it are exhibited in the Kew Museum. As one instance illustrative of the chaotic state of Indian botany, I may here mention that this little plant, a denizen of such remote and inaccessible parts of the globe, and which has only been known to science a dozen years, bears the burthen of no less than six names in botanical works. This is the Bryomorpha rupifraga of Karelin and Kireloff (enumeration of Soongarian plants), who first described it from specimens gathered in 1841, on the Alatau mountains (east of Lake Aral). In Ledebour's "Flora Rossica" (i. p. 780) it appears as Arenaria (sub-genus Dicranilla) rupifraga, Fenzl, MS. In Decaisne and Cambessede's Plants of Jacquemont's

of the second order: see "Forbes' Travels in the Alps," p. 79.] and into which were precipitated avalanches of snow and ice. I found it impossible to distinguish the glacial ice from perpetual snow; the larger beds of snow where presenting a flat surface, being generally drifts collected in hollows, or accumulations that have fallen from above: when these accumulations rest on slopes they become converted into ice, and obeying the laws o

his time acquainted with Mr. D. Sharpe's able essays on the foliation, cleavage, etc., of slaty rocks, gneiss, etc., in the Geological Society's Journal (ii. p. 74, and v. p. 111), and still more so with his subsequent papers in the Philosophical Transactions: as I cannot doubt that many of his observations, and in particular those which refer to the great arches in which the folia (commonly called strata) are disposed, would receive ample illustration from a study of the Himalaya. At vol. i. chapter xiii, I have distantly alluded to such an arrangement of the gneiss, etc., into arches, in Sikkim, to which my attention was naturally drawn by the writings of

cernedly scraped away the snow with their hoofs, and nibbled the scanty herbage. When I mounted mine, he took the bit between his teeth, and scampered back to Palung, over rocks and

latter very few indeed, and none of any size. Such is also the case in Scotland and Norway. Again, on the damp west coast of Tasmania, quadrupeds are rare; whilst the dry eastern half of the island once swarmed with opossums and kangaroos. A few miles north of Tungu, the sterile and more lofty provinces of Tibet abound in wild horses, antelopes, hares, foxes, marmots, and numerous other quadrupeds; although their altitude, climate, and scanty vegetation are apparently even more unsuited to

my dog.] ("Kardiepieu" of the Tibetans) sometimes migrates in swarms (like the Lapland "Lemming") from Tibet as far as Tungu. There are few birds but red-legged crows and common ravens. Most of the insects belonged to arctic types, and they were numerous in indiv

tion-TIB

ng aspirants for holy orders. He is one of the Dukpa sect, wore his mitre, and was seated cross-legged on the grass with his scriptures on his knees: he put questions to the boys, when he who answered best took the other s

attendants curds and yak-flesh. If on foot, I was entreated to take a pony; and when tired I never scrupled to catch one, twist a yak-hair rope over its jaw as a bridle, and throwing a goat-hair cloth upon its back (if no saddle were at hand), ride away whither I would. Next morning a boy would be sent for

oping to reach the lower line of perpetual snow. Ascending the valley of the Chomiochoo, I struck north up a steep slope, that ended in a spur of vast tabular masses of quartz and felspar, piled like slabs in a stone quarry, dipping south-west 5 degrees to 10 d

homson and myself: it is a remarkable plant, very closely resembling, and as it were representing, the D. Brunonianum of the western Himalaya. The latter plant smells powerfully of musk, but not so disagreeably as this does.] was also abun

stony ridge I had attained. Here there was no perpetual snow, which is to be accounted for by the nature of the surface facilit

half at Calcutta. The mean temperature was 50 degrees (max. 65 degrees, min. 40.7 degrees); extremes, 65/38 degrees. The mean range (23.3 degrees) was thus much greater than at Dorjiling, where it was only 8.9 degrees. A thermometer, sunk three feet, varied only a few tenths from 57.6 degrees. By twenty-five comp

.* [About 300 loads of timber, each of six planks, are said to be taken across the Kongra Lama pass annually; and about 250 of rice, besides canes, madder, bamboos, cottons, cloths, and Symplocos leaves for dyei

the houses, and paid the usual penalty of communication with these filthy people; for which my only effectual remedy was bo

glow-worms fly about at night. The common Bengal and Java toad, Bufo scabra, abounded in the marshes, a remarkable in

glish water-plants;* [Sparganium ramosum, Eleocharis palustris, Scirpus triqueter, and Callitriche verna? Some very tropical genera ascend thus high; as Paspalu

hese deposits, which are far from unfrequent, very curious. Can the limestone, which appears in Tibet, underlie the gneiss of Sikkim? We cannot venture to assume that these lime-charged streams, which in Sikkim burst from the steep flanks of narr

produced by glacial action. The bridge at the Tuktoong, mentioned at chapter xix, being carried away, we had to ascend for 1000 feet (to a place where the river could be crossed) by a very precipitous path, and descend on the opposite side. In many places we had great difficulty in proceeding, the track being obliterat

ings; both are flower-feeders, eating honey and pollen. In the summer of 1848, the months at Dorjiling were well marked by the swarms of peculiar insects that appeared in inconceivable numbers; thus, April was marked by a great black Passalus, a beetle one-and-a-half inch long, that flies in the face and entangles itself in the hair; May, by stag-beetles and longicorns; June, by Coccinella (lady-birds), white moths, and flying-bugs; July, by a Dryptis? a long-necked carabideous insect; August, by myriads of earwigs, cockroaches, Goliath-beetles, and cicadas; September, by spiders.] Mantis, great locusts, grasshoppers, flying-bugs, crickets, ants, spiders, caterpil

en observations gave 1 degree Fahr. as equal to 260 feet, the mean difference of temperature being then 25 degrees. The mean maximum of the day was 80 degrees, and was attained at 11 a.m., after which clouds formed, and the thermometer fell to 66 degrees at sunset, and 56 degrees at night. In my blanket tent the heat rose

l times, as the rocks and jungle rendered it very difficult to do it accurately: then, sitting on the bridge, I timed floating masses of different materials and sizes that were thrown in at the upper point. I was surprised to find the velocity of the Lachen only nine miles per hour, for its waters seemed to shoot past with the speed of an arrow, but the floats

ver, has by far the most distant source. Their united streams discharge upwards of 10,000 cubic feet of water per second in the height of the rains! which is, however, a mere fraction of the discharge of the Teesta when that river leaves the Himalaya. The Ganges at Hurdwar discharges 8000 feet per second during the dry season.] its temperature was also 57 degrees. These streams retain an extraordinary velocity, for many miles upwards; the Lachen to its junc

e officially, and with a very bad grace; poor fellow, he expected me to have returned with him to Singtam, and thence gone back to Dorjiling, and many a sor

t was impossible for a dog to retain his footing: in this situation he used to get thoroughly frightened, and lie down on the bamboos with his legs hanging over the water, and having no hold whatever. I had several times rescued him from this perilous position, which was always rendered more imminent from the shaking of the bridge as I approached him. On the present occasion, I stopped at the foot of some rocks below the bridge, botanizing, and Kinchin having scrambled up the rocks, ran on to the bridge. I could not see him, and was not thinking about him, when suddenly his shrill, short barks of terror rang above the roaring torrent. I hastened to the bridge, but before I could get to it, he had lost his footing, and had disappeared. Holding o

e the river, and 6,609 feet above the sea, where I spent the night. Here are cultivated plantains

cends lofty flat-topped spurs, which overhang the river, and command some of the most beautiful scenery in Sikkim. The south-east slopes are clothed with Abies Brunoniana at 8000 feet elevation, and cleft by a deep ravine, from wh

which is by far the most picturesque village in the temperate region of Sikkim. Grassy flats of different levels, sprinkled with brushwood and scattered clumps of pine and maple, occupy the valley; whose west flanks rise in steep, rocky, and scantily wooded grassy slopes. About five miles to the north the valley forks; two conspicuous domes of snow rising from the intermediate mountains. The eastern valley leads to lofty snowed regions, and is said to be impracticable; the Lachoong flows down the western, which appeared rugged, and covered with pine woods. On the east, Tunkra mo

ONG VALLEY AND VIL

he valley of the Tunkrachoo. Those on the upper flank are much the largest; and the loftiest of them terminates in a conical hill crowned with Boodhist fl

IENT MORAINES IN THE L

TH-

Lavanchi moraine. The spectator standing in the expanded part below the village of Argentiere, and looking upwards, sees the valley closed above by the ancient moraine of the Argentiere glacier, and below by that of Lavanchi; and an all sides the slopes are cut into terraces, strewed with boulders. I found traces of stratified

some wretched cultivation in fields,* [Full of such English weeds as shepherd's purse, nettles, Solanum nigrum, and dock; besides many Himalayan ones, as balsams, thistles, a beautiful geranium, mallow, Haloragis and Cucurbitaceous plants.] of wheat, barley, peas, radishes, and turnips. Rice was once cultivated at this elevation (8000 feet), but the crop was uncertain; some very tropica

on a board, covered with a blanket, and dying of pressure on the brain; he was surrounded by a deputation of Lamas from Teshoo Loombo, sent for in this emergency. The principal one was a fat fellow, who sat cross-legged before a block-printed Tibetan book,

EAD AND FEET O