Himalayan Journals Part 14

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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed 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, n.o.ble 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 Liba.n.u.s, and seeing how very variable _Coniferae_ are in habit, we may a.s.sume 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 pa.s.sing the Ta.s.sichooding 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 gra.s.sy plain of a few acres, fenced in, as were also a few fields, with stone d.y.k.es. 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.s, 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 s.p.a.ce.

The moraines were all acc.u.mulated 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 ab.u.t.ted, 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 acc.u.mulations 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.

Ill.u.s.tration--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 gra.s.s 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, parna.s.sia, 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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.s, 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 gra.s.sy 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 s...o...b..ds, 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 pa.s.s, 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.s, the former bearing the same relation to Monte Rosa that the latter does to Kinchinjunga. Junnoo, though incomparably the more stupendous ma.s.s, 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 alt.i.tude; 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.]

Ill.u.s.tration--JUNNOO 24,000 FT. FROM CHOONJERMA Pa.s.s 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 k.u.mbo-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 s.e.xtant and artificial horizon their height, judging from the quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.s, till the coolies should come up, but saw nothing worthy of remark, the natural history and geology being identical with those of Kambachen pa.s.s: 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 pa.s.s, which lay to the south-east.

On the left I pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s, 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.s. Still I thought the best thing was to push on, and light large fires at the first juniper we should reach.

The change, on pa.s.sing 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 coa.r.s.e 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 acc.u.mulation 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.

Ill.u.s.tration--TIBETAN CHARM-BOX.

CHAPTER XII.

Yalloong valley--Fiud Kanglanamo pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s--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--Superst.i.tions--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 pa.s.s (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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.ses 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.ses 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 enc.u.mber 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 pa.s.ses; 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 h.o.a.r-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 quant.i.ty 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 princ.i.p.al peaks, etc., of the Yangma and Kambachen valleys. To the south and south-east, lofty, rugged and pine-clad mountains rose in confused ma.s.ses, and white sheets of mist came driving up, clinging to the mountain-tops, and shrouding the landscape with extreme rapidity.