Chapter IV…

Chapter IV

Leave Bhagulpore—Kunker—Colgong—Himalaya, distant view of—Cosi, mouth of—Difficult navigation—Sand storms—Caragola-Ghat—Purnea—Ortolans—Mahanuddee, transport of pebbles, etc.—Betel-pepper, cultivation of—Titalya—Siligoree—View of outer Himalaya—Terai—Mechis—Punkabaree—Foot of mountains—Ascent to Dorjiling—Cicadas—Leeches—Animals—Kursiong, spring vegetation of—Pacheem—Arrive at Dorjiling—Dorjiling, origin and settlement of—Grant of land from Rajah—Dr. Campbell appointed superintendent—Dewan, late and present—Aggressive conduct of the latter—Increase of the station—Trade—Titalya fair—Healtby climate for Europeans and children—Invalids, diseases prejudicial to.

I took as it were, a new departure, on Saturday, April the 8th, my dawk being laid on that day from Caragola-Ghat, about thirty miles down the river, for the foot of the Himalaya range and Dorjiling.

Passing the pretty villa-like houses of the English residents, the river-banks re-assumed their wonted features the hills receded from the shore; and steep clay cliffs, twenty to fifty feet high, on one side, opposed long sandy shelves on the other. Kunker was still most abundant, especially in the lower bed of the banks, close to the (now very low) water. The strata containing it were much undulated, but not uniformly so; horizontal layers over or under-lying the disturbed ones. At Colgong, conical hills appear, and two remarkable sister-rocks start out of the river, the same in structure with those of Sultangunj. A boisterous current swirls round them, strong even at this season, and very dangerous in the rains, when the swollen river is from twenty-eight to forty feet deeper than now. We landed opposite the rocks, and proceeded to the residence of Mr. G. Barnes, prettily situated on one of the conical elevations characteristic of the geology of the district. The village we passed through had been recently destroyed by fire; and nothing but the clay outer walls and curious-looking partition walls remained, often white-washed and daubed with figures in red of the palm of the hand, elephant, peacock, and tiger,—a sort of rude fresco-painting. We did not arrive till past mid-day, and the boat, with my palkee and servant, not having been able to face the gale, I was detained till the middle of the following day. Mr. Barnes and his brother proved most agreeable companions,—very luckily for me, for it requires no ordinary philosophy to bear being storm-stayed on a voyage, with the prospect of paying a heavy demurrage for detaining the dawk, and the worse one of finding the bearers given to another traveller when you arrive at the rendezvous. The view from Mr. Barnes’ house is very fine: it commands the river and its rocks; the Rajmahal hills to the east and south; broad acres of indigo and other crops below; long lines of palm-trees, and groves of mango, banana, tamarind, and other tropical trees, scattered close around and in the distance. In the rainy season, and immediately after, the snowy Himalaya are distinctly seen on the horizon, fully 170 miles off. Nearly opposite, the Cosi river enters the Ganges, bearing (considering its short course) an enormous volume of water, comprising the drainage of the whole Himalaya between the two giant peaks of Kinchinjunga in Sikkim, and Gossain-Than in Nepal. Even at this season, looking from Mr. Barnes’ eyrie over the bed of the Ganges, the enormous expanses of sand, the numerous shifting islets, and the long spits of mud betray the proximity of some very restless and resistless power. During the rains, the scene must indeed be extraordinary, when the Cosi lays many miles of land under water, and pours so vast a quantity of detritus into the bed of the Ganges that long islets are heaped up and swept away in a few hours; and the latter river becomes all but unnavigable. Boats are caught in whirlpools, formed without a moment’s warning, and sunk ere they have spun round thrice in the eddies; and no part of the inland navigation of India is so dreaded or dangerous, as the Ganges at its junction with the Cosi.

Rain generally falls in partial showers at this season, and they are essential to the well-being of the spring crops of indigo. The stormy appearance of the sky, though it proved fallacious, was hailed by my hosts as predicting a fall, which was much wanted. The wind however seemed but to aggravate the drought, by the great body of sand it lifted and swept up the valleys, obscuring the near horizon, and especially concealing the whole delta of the Cosi, where the clouds were so vast and dense, and ascended so high as to resemble another element.

All night the gale blew on, accompanied with much thunder and lightning, and it was not till noon of the 9th that I descried my palkee-boat toiling down the stream. Then I again embarked, taking the lagging boat in tow of my own. Passing the mouths of the Cosi, the gale and currents were so adverse that we had to bring up on the sand, when the quantity which drifted into the boat rendered the delay as disagreeable as it was tedious. The particles penetrated everywhere, up my nose and down my back, drying my eyelids, and gritting between my teeth. The craft kept bumping on the banks, and being both crazy and leaky, the little comfortless cabin became the refuge of scared rats and cockroaches. In the evening I shared a meal with these creatures, on some provisions my kind friends had put into the boat, but the food was so sandy that I had to bolt my supper!

At night the storm lulled a little, and I proceeded to Caragola Ghat and took up my dawk, which had been twenty-eight hours expecting me, and was waiting, in despair of my arrival, for another traveller on the opposite bank, who however could not cross the river.

Having accomplished thirty miles, I halted at 9 a..m. on the following morning at Purnea, quitting it at noon for Kishengunj. The whole country wore a greener garb than I had seen anywhere south of the Ganges: the climate was evidently more humid, and had been gradually becoming so from Mirzapore. The first decided change was a few miles below the Soane mouth, at Dinapore and Patna; and the few hygrometrical observations I took at Bhagulpore confirmed the increase of moisture. The proximity to the sea and great Delta of the Ganges sufficiently accounts for this; as does the approach to the hills for the still greater dampness and brighter verdure of Purnea. I was glad to feel myself within the influence of the long-looked-for Himalaya; and I narrowly watched every change in the character of the vegetation. A fern, growing by the roadside, was the first and most tangible evidence of this; together with the rarity or total absence of Butea, Boswellia, Catechu, Grislea, Carissa, and all the companions of my former excursion.

Purnea is a large station, and considered very unhealthy during and after the rains. From it the road passed through some pretty lanes, with groves of planted Guava and a rattan palm (Calamus), the first I had seen. Though no hills are nearer than the Himalaya, from the constant alteration of the river-beds, the road undulates remarkably for this part of India, and a jungly vegetation ensues, consisting of the above plants, with the yellow-flowered Cactus replacing the Euphorbias, which were previously much more common. Though still 100 miles distant from the hills, mosses appeared on the banks, and more ferns were just sprouting above ground.

The Bamboo was a very different species from any I had hitherto met with, forming groves of straight trees fifteen to twenty feet high, thin of foliage, and not unlike poplars.

Thirty-six miles from Purnea brought me to Kishengunj, when I found that no arrangements whatever had been made for my dawk, and I was fairly stranded. Luckily a thoughtful friend had provided me with letters to the scattered residents along the road, and I proceeded with one to Mr. Perry, the assistant magistrate of the district,—a gentleman well known for his urbanity, and the many aids he affords to travellers on this neglected line of road. Owing to this being some festival or holiday, it was impossible to get palkee-bearers; the natives were busy catching fish in all the muddy pools around. Some of Mr. Perry’s own family also were about to proceed to Dorjiling, so that I had only to take patience, and be thankful for having to exercise it in such pleasant quarters. The Mahanuddee, a large stream from the hills, flows near this place, strewing the surrounding neighbourhood with sand, and from the frequent alterations in its course, causing endless disputes amongst the landholders. A kind of lark called an Ortolan was abundant: this is not, however, the European delicacy of that name, though a migratory bird; the flocks are large, and the birds so fat, that they make excellent table game. At this time they were rapidly disappearing; to return from the north in September. I had just got into bed at night, when the bearers arrived; so bidding a hurried adieu to my kind host, I proceeded onwards.

April 12.—I awoke at 4 a.m., and found my palkee on the ground, and the bearers coolly smoking their hookahs under a tree (it was raining hard): they had carried me the length of their stage, twelve miles, and there were no others to take me on. I had paid twenty-four pounds for my dawk, from Caragola to the hills, to which I had been obliged to add a handsome douceur; so I lost all patience. After waiting and entreating during several hours, I found the head-man of a neighbouring village, and by a further disbursement induced six out of the twelve bearers to carry the empty palkee, whilst I should walk to the next stage; or till we should meet some others. They agreed, and cutting the thick and spongy sheaths of the banana, used them for shoulder-pads: they also wrapped them round the palkee-poles, to ease their aching clavicles. Walking along I picked up a few plants, and fourteen miles further on came again to the banks of the Mahanuddee, whose bed was strewn with pebbles and small boulders, brought thus far from the mountains (about thirty miles distant). Here, again, I had to apply to the head-man of a village, and pay for bearers to take me to Titalya, the next stage (fourteen miles). Some curious long low sheds puzzled me very much, and on examining them they proved to be for the growth of Pawn or Betel-pepper, another indication of the moisture of the climate. These sheds are twenty to fifty yards long, eight or twelve or so broad, and scarcely five high; they are made of bamboo, wattled all round and over the top. Slender rods are placed a few feet apart, inside, up which the Pepper Vines climb, and quickly fill the place with their deep green glossy foliage. The native enters every morning by a little door, and carefully cleans the plants. Constant heat, damp, and moisture, shelter from solar beams, from scorching heat, and from nocturnal radiation, are thus all procured for the plant, which would certainly not live twenty-four hours, if exposed to the climate of this treeless district. Great attention is paid to the cultivation, which is very profitable. Snakes frequently take up their quarters in these hot-houses, and cause fatal accidents.

Titalya was once a military station of some importance, and from its proximity to the hills has been selected by Dr. Campbell (the Superintendent of Dorjiling) as the site for an annual fair, to which the mountain tribes resort, as well as the people of the plains. The Calcutta road to Dorjiling by Dinajpore meets, near here, that by which I had come; and I found no difficulty in procuring bearers to proceed to Siligoree, where I arrived at 6 a.m. on the 13th. Hitherto I bad not seen the mountains, so uniformly had they been shrouded by dense wreaths of vapour: here, however, when within eight miles of their base, I caught a first glimpse of the outer range—sombre masses, of far from picturesque outline, clothed everywhere with a dusky forest.

Siligoree stands on the verge of the Terai, that low malarious belt which skirts the base of the Himalaya, from the Sutlej to Brahma-koond in Upper Assam. Every feature, botanical, geological, and zoological, is new on entering this district. The change is sudden and immediate: sea and shore are hardly more conspicuously different, nor from the edge of the Terai to the limit of perpetual snow is any botanical region more clearly marked than this, which is the commencement of Himalayan vegetation. A sudden descent leads to the Mahanuddee river, flowing in a shallow valley, over a pebbly bottom: it is a rapid river, even at this season; its banks are fringed with bushes, and it is as clear and sparkling as a trout stream in Scotland. Beyond it the road winds through a thick brushwood, choked with long grasses, and with but few trees, chiefly of Acacia, Dalbergia Sissoo, and a scarlet fruited Sterculia. The soil is a red, friable clay and gravel. At this season only a few spring plants were in flower, amongst which a very sweet-scented Crinum, Asphodel, and a small Curcuma, were in the greatest profusion. Leaves of terrestrial Orchids appeared, with ferns and weeds of hot damp regions. I crossed the beds of many small streams: some were dry, and all very tortuous; their banks were richly clothed with brushwood and climbers of Convolvulus, Vines, Hiræa, Leea, Menispermeæ, Cucurbitaceæ, and Bignoniaceæ. Their pent-up waters, percolating the gravel beds, and partly carried off by evaporation through the stratum of ever-increasing vegetable mould, must be one main agent in the production of the malarious vapours of this pestilential region. Add to this, the detention of the same amongst the jungly herbage, the amount of vapour in the humid atmosphere above, checking the upward passage of that from the soil, the sheltered nature of the locality at the immediate base of lofty mountains; and there appear to me to be here all necessary elements, which, combined, will produce stagnation and deterioration in an atmosphere loaded with vapour. Fatal as this district is, and especially to Europeans, a race inhabit it with impunity, who, if not numerous, do not owe their paucity to any climatic causes. These are the Mechis, often described as a squalid, unhealthy people, typical of the region they frequent; but who are, in reality, more robust than the Europeans in India, and whose disagreeably sallow complexion is deceptive as indicating a sickly constitution. They are a mild, inoffensive people, industrious for Orientals, living by annually burning the Terai jungle and cultivating the cleared spots; and, though so sequestered and isolated, they rather court than avoid intercourse with those whites whom they know to be kindly disposed.

After proceeding some six miles along the gradually ascending path, I came to a considerable stream, cutting its way through stratified gravel, with cliffs on each side fifteen to twenty feet high, here and there covered with ferns, the little Oxalis sensitiva, and other herbs. The road here suddenly ascends a steep gravelly hill, and opens out on a short flat, or spur, from which the Himalaya rise abruptly, clothed with forest from the base: the little bungalow of Punkabaree, my immediate destination, nestled in the woods, crowning a lateral knoll, above which, to east and west, as far as the eye could reach, were range after range of wooded mountains, 6000 to 8000 feet high. I here met with the India-rubber tree (Ficus elastica); it abounds in Assam, but this is its western limit.

From this steppe, the ascent to Punkabaree is sudden and steep, and accompanied with a change in soil and vegetation. The mica slate and clay slate protrude everywhere, the former full of garnets. A giant forest replaces the stunted and bushy timber of the Terai Proper; of which the Duabanga and Terminalias form the prevailing trees, with Cedrela and the Gordonia Wallichii. Smaller timber and shrubs are innumerable; a succulent character pervades the bushes and herbs, occasioned by the prevalence of Urticeæ. Large bamboos rather crest the hills than court the deeper shade, and of the latter there is abundance, for the torrents cut a straight, deep, and steep course down the hill flanks: the galleys they traverse are choked with vegetation and bridged by fallen trees, whose trunks are richly clothed with Dendrobium Pierardi and other epiphytical Orchids, with pendulous Lycopodia and many ferns, Hoya, Scitamineæ, and similar types of the hottest and dampest climates.

The bungalow at Punkabaree was good—which was well, as my luggage-bearers were not come up, and there were no signs of them along the Terai road, which I saw winding below me. My scanty stock of paper being full of plants, I was reduced to the strait of botanising, and throwing away my specimens. The forest was truly magnificent along the steep mountain sides. The apparently large proportion of deciduous trees was far more considerable than I had expected; partly, probably, due to the abundance of the Dillenia, Cassia, and Sterculia, whose copious fruit was all the more conspicuous from the leafless condition of the plant. The white or lilac blossoms of the convolvuluslike Thunbergia, and other Acanthaceæ were the predominant features of the shrubby vegetation, and very handsome.

All around, the hills rise steeply five or six thousand feet, clothed in a dense deep-green dripping forest. Torrents rush down the slopes, their position indicated by the dipping of the forest into their beds, or the occasional cloud of spray rising above some more boisterous part of their course. From the road, at and a little above Punkabaree, the view is really superb, and very instructive. Behind (or north) the Himalaya rise in steep confused masses. Below, the hill on which I stood, and the ranges as far as the eye can reach east and west, throw spurs on to the plains of India. These are very thickly wooded, and enclose broad, dead-flat, hot and damp valleys, apparently covered with a dense forest. Secondary spurs of clay and gravel, like that immediately below Punkabaree, rest on the bases of the mountains, and seem to form an intermediate neutral ground between flat and mountainous India. The Terai district forms a very irregular belt, scantily clothed, and intersected by innumerable rivulets from the hills, which unite and divide again on the flat, till, emerging from the region of many trees, they enter the plains, following devious courses, which glisten like silver threads. The whole horizon is bounded by the sea-like expanse of the plains, which stretch away into the region of sunshine and fine weather, in one boundless flat.

In the distance, the courses of the Teesta and Cosi, the great drainers of the snowy Himalayas, and the recipients of innumerable smaller rills, are with difficulty traced at this, the dry season. The ocean-like appearance of this southern view is even more conspicuous in the heavens than on the land, the clouds arranging themselves after a singularly sea-scape fashion. Endless strata run in parallel ribbons over the extreme horizon; above these, scattered cumuli, also in horizontal lines, are dotted against a clear grey sky, which gradually, as the eye is lifted, passes into a deep cloudless blue vault, continuously clear to the zenith; there the cumuli, in white fleecy masses, again appear; till, in the northern celestial hemisphere, they thicken and assume the leaden hue of nimbi, discharging their moisture on the dark forest-clad hills around. The breezes are south-easterly, bringing that vapour from the Indian Ocean, which is rarefied and suspended aloft over the heated plains, but condensed into a drizzle when it strikes the cooler flanks of the hills, and into heavy rain when it meets their still colder summits. Upon what a gigantic scale does nature here operate! Vapours, raised from an ocean whose nearest shore is more than 400 miles distant, are safely transported without the loss of one drop of water, to support the rank luxuriance of this far distant region. This and other offices fulfilled, the waste waters are returned, by the Cosi and Teesta, to the ocean, and again exhaled, exported, expended, re-collected, and returned.

The soil and bushes everywhere swarmed with large and troublesome ants, and enormous earthworms. In the evening, the noise of the great Cicadæ in the trees was almost deafening. They burst suddenly into full chorus, with a voice so harshly croaking, so dissonant, and so unearthly, that in these solitary forests I could not help being startled. In general character the note was very similar to that of other Cicadæ. They ceased as suddenly as they commenced. On the following morning my baggage arrived, and, leaving my palkee, I mounted a pony kindly sent for me by Mr. Hodgson, and commenced a very steep ascent of about 3000 feet, winding along the face of a steep, richly-wooded valley. The road zigzags extraordinarily in and out of the innumerable lateral ravines, each with its water course, dense jungle, and legion of leeches; the bite of these blood-suckers gives no pain, but is fo1lowed by considerable effusion of blood. They puncture through thick worsted stockings, and even trousers, and, when full, roll in the form of a little soft ball into the bottom of the shoe, where their presence is hardly felt in walking.

Not only are the roadsides rich in plants, but native paths, cutting off all the zigzags, run in straight lines up the steepest hill-faces, and thus double the available means for botanising; and it is all but impossible to leave the paths of one kind or other, except for a yard or two up the rocky ravines. Elephants, tigers, and occasionally the rhinoceros, inhabit the foot of these hills, with wild boars, leopards, etc.; but none are numerous. The elephant’s path is an excellent specimen of engineering—the opposite of the native track, for it winds judiciously.

At about 1000 feet above Punkabaree, the vegetation is very rich, and appears all the more so from the many turnings of the road, affording glorious prospects of the foreshortened tropical forests. The prevalent timber is gigantic, and scaled by climbing Leguminosæ, as Bauhinias and Robinias, which sometimes sheath the trunks, or span the forest with huge cables, joining tree to tree. Their trunks are also clothed with parasitical Orchids, and still more beautifully with Pothos (Scindapsus), Peppers, Gnetum, Vines, Convolvulus, and Bignoniæ. The beauty of the drapery of the Pothos-leaves is pre-eminent, whether for the graceful folds the foliage assumes, or for the liveliness of its colour. Of the more conspicuous smaller trees, the wild banana is the most abundant, its crown of very beautiful foliage contrasting with the smaller-leaved plants amongst which it nestles; next comes a screw-pine (Pandanus) with a straight stem and a tuft of leaves; each eight or ten feet long, waving on all sides. Araliaceæ, with smooth or armed slender trunks, and Mappa-like Euphorbiaceæ, spread their long petioles horizontally forth, each terminated with an ample leaf some feet in diameter. Bamboo abounds everywhere: its dense tufts of culms, 100 feet and upwards high, are as thick as a man’s thigh at the base. Twenty or thirty, species of ferns (including a tree-fern) were luxuriant and handsome. Foliaceous lichens and a few mosses appeared at 2000 feet. Such is the vegetation of the roads through the tropical forests of the Outer-Himalaya.

At about 4000 feet the road crossed a saddle, and ran along the narrow crest of a hill, the top of that facing the plains of India, and over which is the way to the interior ranges, amongst which Dorjiling is placed, still twenty-five miles off. A little below this a great change had taken place in the vegetation, marked, first, by the appearance of a very English-looking bramble, which, however, by way of proving its foreign origin, bore a very good yellow fruit, called here the “yellow raspberry.” Scattered oaks, of a noble species, with large lamellated cups and magnificent foliage, succeeded; and along the ridge of the mountain to Kursiong (a dawk bungalow at about 4,800 feet), the change in the flora was complete.

The spring of this region and elevation most vividly recalled that of England. The oak flowering, the birch bursting into leaf, the violet, Chrysosplenium, Stellaria and Arum, Vaccinium, wild strawberry, maple, geranium, bramble. A colder wind blew here: mosses and lichens carpeted the banks and roadsides: the birds and insects were very different from those below; and everything proclaimed the marked change in elevation, and not only in this, but in season, for I had left the winter of the tropics and here encountered the spring of the temperate zone.

The flowers I have mentioned are so notoriously the harbingers of a European spring that their presence carries one home at once; but, as species, they differ from their European prototypes, and are accompanied at this elevation (and for 2000 feet higher up) with tree-fern, Pothos, bananas, palms, figs, pepper, numbers of epiphytal Orchids, and similar genuine tropical genera. The uniform temperature and humidity of the region here favour the extension of tropical plants into a temperate region; exactly as the same conditions cause similar forms to reach higher latitudes in the southern hemisphere (as in New Zealand, Tasmania, South Chili, etc.) than they do in the northern.

Along this ridge I met with the first tree-fern. This species seldom reaches the height of forty feet; the black trunk is but three or four in girth, and the feathery crown is ragged in comparison with the species of many other countries: it is the Alsophila gigantea, and ascends nearly to 7000 feet elevation.

Kursiong bungalow, where I stopped for a few hours, is superbly placed, on a narrow mountain ridge. The west window looks down the valley of the Balasun river, the east into that of the Mahanuddee: both of these rise from the outer range, and flow in broad, deep, and steep valleys (about 4000 feet deep) which give them their respective names; and are richly wooded from the Terai to their tops. Till reaching this spur, I had wound upwards along the western slope of the Mahanuddee valley. The ascent from the spur at Kursiong, to the top of the mountain (on the northern face of which Dorjiling is situated), is along the eastern slope of the Balasun.

From Kursiong a very steep zigzag leads up the mountain, through a magnificent forest of cbesnut, walnut, oaks, and laurels. It is difficult to conceive a grander mass of vegetation: the straight shafts of the timber-trees shooting aloft, some naked and clean, with grey, pale, or brown bark; others literally clothed for yards with a continuous garment of epiphytes, one mass of blossoms, especially the white Orchids Cælogynes, which bloom in a profuse manner, whitening their trunks like snow. More bulky trunks were masses of interlacing climbers, Araliaceæ, Leguminosæ, Vines, and Menispermeæ, Hydrangea, and Peppers, enclosing a hollow, once filled by the now strangled supporting tree, which had long ago decayed away. From the sides and summit of these, supple branches hung forth, either leafy or naked; the latter resembling cables flung from one tree to another, swinging in the breeze, their rocking motion increased by the weight of great bunches of ferns or Orchids, which were perched aloft in the loops. Perpetual moisture nourishes this dripping forest: and pendulous mosses and lichens are met with in profusion.

Two thousand feet higher up, near Mahaldiram (whence the last view of the plains is gained), European plants appear,—Berberry, Paris, etc.; but here, night gathered round, and I had still ten miles to go to the nearest bungalow, that of Pacheem. The road still led along the eastern slope of the Balasun valley, which was exceedingly steep, and so cut up by ravines, that it winds in and out of gulleys almost narrow enough to be jumped across.

It was very late before I arrived at Pacheem bungalow, the most sinister-looking rest-house I ever saw, stuck on a little cleared spur of the mountain, surrounded by dark forests, overhanging a profound valley, and enveloped in mists and rain, and hideous in architecture, being a miserable attempt to unite the Swiss cottage with the suburban gothic; it combined a maximum of discomfort with a minimum of good looks or good cheer. I was some time in finding the dirty housekeeper, in an outhouse hard by, and then in waking him. As he led me up the crazy verandah, and into a broad ghostly room, without glass in the windows, or fire, or any one comfort, my mind recurred to the stories told of the horrors of the Hartz forest, and of the benighted traveller’s situation therein. Cold sluggish beetles hung to the damp walls,—and these I immediately secured. After due exertions and perseverance with the damp wood, a fire smoked lustily, and, by cajoling the gnome of a housekeeper, I procured the usual roast fowl and potatos, with the accustomed sauce of a strong smoky and singed flavour.[30]

[30] Since writing the above a comfortable house has been erected at Senadah, the name now given to what was called Pacheem Bungalow.

Pacheem stands at an elevation of nearly 7300 feet, and as I walked out on the following morning I met with English looking plants in abundance, but was too early in the season to get aught but the foliage of most. Chryosplenium, violet, Lobelia, a small geranium, strawberry, five or six kinds of bramble, Arum, Paris, Convallaria, Stellaria, Rubia, Vaccinium, and various Gnaphalia. Of small bushes, cornels, honeysuckles, and the ivy tribe predominated, with Symplocos and Skimmia, Eurya, bushy brambles, having simple or compound green or beautifully silky foliage; Hypericum, Berberry, Hydrangea, Wormwood, Adamia cyanea, Viburnum, Elder, dwarf bamboo, etc.

The climbing plants were still Panax or Aralia, Kadsura, Saurauja, Hydrangea, Vines, Smilax, Ampelopsis, Polygona, and, most beautiful of all, Stauntonia, with pendulous racemes of lilac blossoms. Epiphytes were rarer, still I found white and purple Cæloynes, and other Orchids, and a most noble white Rhododendron, whose truly enormous and delicious lemon-scented blossoms strewed the ground. The trees were one half oaks, one quarter Magnolias, and nearly another quarter laurels, amongst which grew Himalayan kinds of birch, alder, maple, holly, bird-cherry, common cherry, and apple. The absence of Leguminosæ was most remarkable, and the most prominent botanical feature in the vegetation of this region: it is too high for the tropical tribes of the warmer elevations, too low for the Alpines, and probably too moist for those of temperate regions; cool, equable, humid climates being generally unfavourable to that order. Clematis was rare, and other Ranunculaceæ still more so. Cruciferæ were absent, and, what was still more remarkable, I found very few native species of grasses. Both Poa annua and white Dutch clover flourished where accidentally disseminated, but only in artificially cleared spots. Of ferns I collected about sixty species, chiefly of temperate genera. The supremacy of this temperate region consists in the infinite number of forest trees, in the absence (in the usual proportion, at any rate) of such common orders as Compositæ, Leguminosæ, Cruciferæ, and Ranunculaceæ, and of Grasses amongst Monocotyledons, and in the predominance of the rarer and more local families, as those of Rhododendron, Camellia, Magnolia, Ivy, Cornel, Honeysuckle, Hydrangea, Begonia, and Epiphytic orchids.

From Pacheem, the road runs in a northerly direction to Dorjiling, still along the Balasun valley, till the saddle of the great mountain Sinchul is crossed. This is narrow, stretching east and west, and from it a spur projects northwards for five or six miles, amongst the many mountains still intervening between it and the snows. This saddle (alt. 7,400 feet) crossed, one is fairly amongst the mountains: the plains behind are cut off by it; and in front, the snows may be seen when the weather is propitious. The valleys on this side of the mountain run northwards, and discharge their streams into great rivers, which, coming from the snow, wind amongst the hills, and debouche into the Teesta, to the east, where it divides Sikkim from Bhotan.

Dorjiling station occupies a narrow ridge, which divides into two spurs, descending steeply to the bed of the Great Rungeet river, up whose course the eye is carried to the base of the great snowy mountains. The ridge itself is very narrow at the top, along which most of the houses are perched, while others occupy positions on its flanks, where narrow locations on the east, and broader ones on the west, are cleared from wood. The valleys on either side are at least 6000 feet deep, forest-clad to the bottom, with very few and small level spots, and no absolute precipice; from their flanks project innumerable little spurs, occupied by native clearings.

My route lay along the east flank, overhanging the valley of the Rungmo river. Looking east, the amphitheatre of hills from the ridge I had crossed was very fine; enclosing an area some four miles across and 4000 feet deep, clothed throughout with an impenetrable, dark forest: there was not one clear patch except near the very bottom, where were some scattered hamlets of two or three huts each. The rock is everywhere near the surface, and the road has been formed by blasting at very many places. A wooded slope descends suddenly from the edge of the road, while, on the other hand, a bank rises abruptly to the top of the ridge, alternately mossy, rocky, and clayey, and presenting a good geological section, all the way along, of the nucleus of Dorjiling spur, exposing broken masses of gneiss. As I descended, I came upon the upper limit of the chesnut, a tree second in abundance to the oak; gigantic, tall, and straight in the trunk.

I arrived at Dorjiling on the 16th of April; a showery, cold month at this elevation. I was so fortunate as to find Mr. Charles Barnes (brother of my friend at Colgong), the sole tenant of a long, cottage-like building, divided off into pairs of apartments, which are hired by visitors. It is usual for Europeans to bring a full establishment of servants (with bedding, etc.) to such stations, but I had not done so, having been told that there was a furnished hotel in Dorjiling; and I was, therefore, not a little indebted to Mr. Barnes for his kind invitation to join his mess. As he was an active mountaineer, we enjoyed many excursions together, in the two months and a half during which we were companions.

Dr. Campbell procured me several active native (Lepcha) lads as collectors, at wages varying from eight to twenty shillings a month; these either accompanied me on my excursions, or went by themselves into the jungles to collect plants, which I occupied myself in drawing, dissecting, and ticketing: while the preserving of them fell to the Lepchas, who, after a little training, became, with constant superintendence, good plant-driers. Even at this season (four weeks before the setting in of the rains) the weather was very uncertain, so that the papers had generally to be dried by the fire.

The hill-station or Sanatarium of Dorjiling owes its origin (like Simla, Mussooree, etc.) to the necessity that exists in India, of providing places where the health of Europeans may be recruited by a more temperate climate. Sikkim proved an eligible position for such an establishment, owing to its proximity to Calcutta, which lies but 370 miles to the southward; whereas the north-west stations mentioned above are upwards of a thousand miles from that city. Dorjiling ridge varies in height from 6,500 to 7,500 feet above the level of the sea; 8000 feet being the elevation at which the mean temperature most nearly coincides with that of London, viz., 50°.

Sikkim was, further, the only available spot for a Sanatarium throughout the whole range of the Himalaya, east of the extreme western frontier of Nepal; being a protected state, and owing no allegiance, except to the British government; which, after the Rajah had been driven from the country by the Ghorkas, in 1817, replaced him on his throne, and guaranteed him the sovereignty. Our main object in doing this was to retain Sikkim as a fender between Nepal and Bhotan: and but for this policy, the aggressive Nepalese would, long ere this, have possessed themselves of Sikkim, Bhotan, and the whole Himalaya, eastwards to the borders of Burmah.[31]

[31] Of such being their wish the Nepalese have never made any secret, and they are said to have asked permission from the British to march an army across Sikkim for the purpose of conquering Bhotan, offering to become more peaceable neighbours to us than the Bhotanese are. Such they would doubtless have proved, but the Nepal frontier is considered broad enough already.

From 1817 to 1828 no notice was taken of Sikkim, till a frontier dispute occurred between the Lepchas and Nepalese, which was referred (according to the terms of the treaty) to the British Government. During the arrangement of this, Dorjiling was visited by a gentleman of high scientific attainments, Mr. J. W. Grant, who pointed out its eligibility as a site for a Sanatarium to Lord William Bentinck, then Governor-General; dwelling especially upon its climate, proximity to Calcutta, and accessibility; on its central position between Tibet, Bhotan, Nepal, and British India; and on the good example a peaceably-conducted and well-governed station would be to our turbulent neighbours in that quarter. The suggestion was cordially received, and Major Herbert (the late eminent Surveyor-General of India) and Mr. Grant were employed to report further on the subject.

The next step taken was that of requesting the Rajah to cede a tract of country which should include Dorjiling, for an equivalent in money or land. His first demand was unreasonable; but on further consideration he surrendered Dorjiling unconditionally, and a sum of 300 pounds per annum was granted to him as an equivalent for what was then a worthless uninhabited mountain. In 1840 Dr. Campbell was removed from Nepal as superintendent of the new station, and was entrusted with the charge of the political relations between the British and Sikkim government.

Once established, Dorjiling rapidly increased. Allotments of land were purchased by Europeans for building dwelling-houses; barracks and a bazaar were formed, with accommodation for invalid European soldiers; a few official residents, civil and military, formed the nucleus of a community, which was increased by retired officers and their families, and by temporary visitors in search of health, or the luxury of a cool climate and active exercise.

For the first few years matters went on smoothly with the Rajah, whose minister (or Dewan) was upright and intelligent: but the latter, on his death, was succeeded by the present Dewan, a Tibetan, and a relative of the Ranee (or Rajah’s wife); a man unsurpassed for insolence and avarice, whose aim was to monopolise the trade of the country, and to enrich himself at its expense. Every obstacle was thrown by him in the way of a good understanding between Sikkim and the British government. British subjects were rigorously excluded from Sikkim; every liberal offer for free trade and intercourse was rejected, generally with insolence; merchandise was taxed, and notorious offenders, refugees from the British territories, were harboured; despatches were detained; and the Vakeels, or Rajah’s representatives, were chosen for their insolence and incapacity. The conduct of the Dewan throughout was Indo-Chinese; assuming, insolent, aggressive, never perpetrating open violence, but by petty insults effectually preventing all good understanding. He was met by neglect or forbearance on the part of the Calcutta government; and by patience and passive resistance at Dorjiling. Our inaction and long-suffering were taken for weakness, and our concessions for timidity. Such has been our policy in China, Siam, and Burmah, and in each instance the result has been the same. Had it been insisted that the terms of the treaty should be strictly kept, and had the first act of insolence been noticed, we should have maintained the best relations with Sikkim, whose people and rulers (with the exception of the Dewan and his faction) have proved themselves friendly throughout, and most anxious for unrestricted communication.

These political matters have not, however, prevented the rapid increase of Dorjiling; the progress of which, during the two years I spent in Sikkim, resembled that of an Australian colony, not only in amount of building, but in the accession of native families from the surrounding countries. There were not a hundred inhabitants under British protection when the ground was transferred; there are now four thousand. At the former period there was no trade whatever; there is now a very considerable one, in musk, salt, gold-dust, borax, soda, woollen cloths, and especially in poneys, of which the Dewan in one year brought on his own account upwards of 50 into Dorjiling.[32] The trade has been greatly increased by the annual fair which Dr. Campbell has established at the foot of the hills, to which many thousands of natives flock from all quarters, and which exercises a most beneficial influence throughout the neighbouring territories. At this, prizes (in medals, money, and kind) are given for agricultural implements and produce, stock, etc., by the originator and a few friends; a measure attended with eminent success.

[32] The Tibetan pony, though born and bred 10,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea, is one of the most active and useful animals in the plains of Bengal, powerful and hardy, and when well trained early, docile, although by nature vicious and obstinate.

In estimating in a sanitory point of view the value of any health-station, little reliance can be placed on the general impressions of invalids, or even of residents; the opinion of each varies with the nature and state of his complaint, if ill, or with his idiosyncracy and disposition, if well. I have seen prejudiced invalids rapidly recovering, in spite of themselves, and all the while complaining in unmeasured terms of the climate of Dorjiling, and abusing it as killing them. Others are known who languish under the heat of the plains at one season, and the damp at another; and who, though sickening and dying under its influence, yet consistently praise a tropical climate to the last. The opinions of those who resort to Dorjiling in health, differ equally; those of active minds invariably thoroughly enjoy it, while the mere lounger or sportsman mopes. The statistical tables afford conclusive proofs of the value of the climate to Europeans suffering from acute diseases, and they are corroborated by the returns of the medical officer in charge of the station. With respect to its suitability to the European constitution I feel satisfied, and that much saving of life, health, and money would be effected were European troops drafted thither on their arrival in Bengal, instead of being stationed in Calcutta, exposed to disease, and temptation to those vices which prove fatal to so many hundreds. This, I have been given to understand, was the view originally taken by the Court of Directors, but it has never been carried out.

I believe that children’s faces afford as good an index as any to the healthfulness of a climate, and in no part of the world is there a more active, rosy, and bright young community, than at Dorjiling. It is incredible what a few weeks of that mountain air does for the India-born children of European parents: they are taken there sickly, pallid or yellow, soft and flabby, to become transformed into models of rude health and activity.

There are, however, disorders to which the climate (in common with all damp ones) is not at all suited; such are especially dysentery, bowel complaints, and liver complaints of long standing; which are not benefited by a residence on these hills, though how much worse they might have become in the plains is not shown. I cannot hear that the climate aggravates, but it certainly does not remove them. Whoever is suffering from the debilitating effects of any of the multifarious acute maladies of the plains, finds instant relief, and acquires a stock of health that enables him to resist fresh attacks, under circumstances similar to those which before engendered them.

Natives of the low country, and especially Bengalees, are far from enjoying the climate as Europeans do, being liable to sharp attacks of fever and ague, from which the poorly clad natives are not exempt. It is, however, difficult to estimate the effects of exposure upon the Bengalees, who sleep on the bare and often damp ground, and adhere, with characteristic prejudice, to the attire of a torrid climate, and to a vegetable diet, under skies to which these are least of all adapted.

It must not be supposed that Europeans who have resided in the plains can, on their first arrival, expose themselves with impunity to the cold of these elevations; this was shown in the winter of 1848 and 1849, when troops brought up to Dorjiling were cantoned in newly-built dwellings, on a high exposed ridge 8000 feet above the sea, and lay, insufficiently protected, on a floor of loosely laid planks, exposed to the cold wind, when the ground without was covered with snow. Rheumatisms, sharp febrile attacks, and dysenteries ensued, which were attributed in the public prints to the unhealthy nature of the climate of Dorjiling.

The following summary of hospital admissions affords the best test of the healthiness of the climate, embracing, as the period does, the three most fatal months to European troops in India. Out of a detachment (105 strong) of H.M. 80th Regiment stationed at Dorjiling, in the seven months from January to July inclusive, there were sixty-four admissions to the hospital, or, on the average, 4-1/3 per cent. per month; and only two deaths, both of dysentery. Many of these men had suffered frequently in the plains from acute dysentery and hepatic affections, and many others had aggravated these complaints by excessive drinking, and two were cases of delirium tremens. During the same period, the number of entries at Calcutta or Dinapore would probably have more than trebled this.

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Chapter V

View from Mr. Hodgson’s of range of snowy mountains—Their extent and elevation—Delusive appearance of elevation—Sinchul, view from and vegetation of—Chumulari—Magnolias, white and purple—Rhododendron Dalhousiæ, arboreum and argenteum—Natives of Dorjiling—Lepchas, origin, tradition of flood, morals, dress, arms, ornaments, diet—cups, origin and value—Marriages—Diseases—Burial—Worship and religion—Bijooas—Kampa Rong, or Arratt—Limboos, origin, habits, language, etc.—Moormis—Magras—Mechis—Comparison of customs with those of the natives of Assam, Khasia, etc.

The summer, or rainy season of 1848, was passed at or near Dorjiling, during which period I chiefly occupied myself in forming collections, and in taking meteorological observations. I resided at Mr Hodgson’s for the greater part of the time, in consequence of his having given me a hospitable invitation to consider his house my home. The view from his windows is one quite unparalleled for the scenery it embraces, commanding confessedly the grandest known landscape of snowy mountains in the Himalaya, and hence in the world.[33] Kinchinjunga (forty-five miles distant) is the prominent object, rising 21,000 feet above the level of the observer out of a sea of intervening wooded hills; whilst, on a line with its snows, the eye descends below the horizon, to a narrow gulf 7000 feet deep in the mountains, where the Great Rungeet, white with foam, threads a tropical forest with a silver line.

[33] For an account of the geography of these regions, and the relation of the Sikkim Himalaya to Tibet, etc., see Appendix.

To the north-west towards Nepal, the snowy peaks of Kubra and Junnoo (respectively 24,005 feet and 25,312 feet) rise over the shoulder of Singalelah; whilst eastward the snowy mountains appear to form an unbroken range, trending north-east to the great mass of Donkia (23,176 feet) and thence south-east by the fingered peaks of Tunkola and the silver cone of Chola, (17,320 feet) gradually sinking into the Bhotan mountains at Gipmoochi (14,509 feet). The most eloquent descriptions I have read fail to convey to my mind’s eye the forms and colours of snowy mountains, or to my imagination the sensations and impressions that rivet my attention to these sublime phenomena when they are present in reality; and I shall not therefore obtrude any attempt of the kind upon my reader. The latter has probably seen the Swiss Alps, which, though barely possessing half the sublimity, extent, or height of the Himalaya, are yet far more beautiful. In either case he is struck with the precision and sharpness of their outlines, and still more with the wonderful play of colours on their snowy flanks, from the glowing hues reflected in orange, gold and ruby, from clouds illumined by the sinking or rising sun, to the ghastly pallor that succeeds with twilight, when the red seems to give place to its complementary colour green. Such dissolving-views elude all attempts at description, they are far too aerial to be chained to the memory, and fade from it so fast as to be gazed upon day after day, with undiminished admiration and pleasure, long after the mountains themselves have lost their sublimity and apparent height.

The actual extent of the snowy range seen from Mr. Hodgson’s windows is comprised within an arc of 80° (from north 30° west to north 50° east), or nearly a quarter of the horizon, along which the perpetual snow forms an unbroken girdle or crest of frosted silver; and in winter, when the mountains are covered down to 8000 feet, this white ridge stretches uninterruptedly for more than 160°. No known view is to be compared with this in extent, when the proximity and height of the mountains are considered; for within the 80° above mentioned more than twelve peaks rise above 20,000 feet, and there are none below 15,000 feet, while Kinchin is 28,178, and seven others above 22,000. The nearest perpetual snow is on Nursing, a beautifully sharp conical peak 19,139 feet high, and thirty-two miles distant; the most remote mountain seen is Donkia, 23,176 feet high, and seventy-three miles distant; whilst Kinchin, which forms the principal mass both for height and bulk, is exactly forty-five miles distant.

On first viewing this glorious panorama, the impression produced on the imagination by their prodigious elevation is, that the peaks tower in the air and pierce the clouds, and such are the terms generally used in descriptions of similar alpine scenery; but the observer, if he look again, will find that even the most stupendous occupy a very low position on the horizon, the top of Kinchin itself measuring only 4° 31" above the level of the observer! Donkia again, which is 23,176 feet above the sea, or about 15,700 above Mr. Hodgson’s, rises only 1° 55" above the horizon; an angle which is quite inappreciable to the eye, when unaided by instruments.[34]

[34] These are the apparent angles which I took from Mr. Hodgson’s house (alt. 7300 feet) with an excellent theodolite, no deduction being made for refraction.

This view may be extended a little by ascending Sinchul, which rises a thousand feet above the elevation of Mr. Hodgson’s house, and is a few miles south-east of Dorjiling: from its summit Chumulari (23,929 feet) is seen to the north-east, at eighty-four miles distance, rearing its head as a great rounded mass over the snowy Chola range, out of which it appears to rise, although in reality lying forty miles beyond;—so deceptive is the perspective of snowy~mountains. To the north-west again, at upwards of 100 miles distance, a beautiful group of snowy mountains rises above the black Singalelah range, the chief being, perhaps, as high as Kinchinjunga, from which it is fully eighty miles distant to the westward; and between them no mountain of considerable altitude intervenes; the Nepalese Himalaya in that direction sinking remarkably towards the Arun river, which there enters Nepal from Tibet.

The top of Sinchul is a favourite excursion from Dorjiling, being very easy of access, and the path abounding in rare and beautiful plants, and passing through magnificent forests of oak, magnolia, and rhododendron; while the summit, besides embracing this splendid view of the snowy range over the Dorjiling spur in the foreground, commands also the plains of India, with the courses of the Teesta, Mahanuddee, Balasun and Mechi rivers. In the months of April and May, when the magnolias and rhododendrons are in blossom, the gorgeous vegetation is, in some respects, not to be surpassed by anything in the tropics; but the effect is much marred by the prevailing gloom of the weather. The white-flowered magnolia (M. excelsa, Wall,) forms a predominant tree at 7000 to 8000 feet; and in 1848 it blossomed so profusely, that the forests on the broad flanks of Sinchul, and other mountains of that elevation, appeared as if sprinkled with snow. The purple-flowered kind again (M. Campbellii) hardly occurs below 8000 feet, and forms an immense, but very ugly, black-barked, sparingly branched tree, leafless in winter and also during the flowering season, when it puts forth from the ends of its branches great rose-purple cup-shaped flowers, whose fleshy petals strew the ground. On its branches, and on those of oaks and laurels, Rhododendron Dalhousiæ grows epiphytically, a slender shrub, bearing from three to six white lemon-scented bells, four and a half inches long and as many broad, at the end of each branch. In the same woods the scarlet rhododendron (R. arboreum) is very scarce, and is outvied by the great R. argenteum, which grows as a tree forty feet high, with magnificent leaves twelve to fifteen inches long, deep green, wrinkled above and silvery below, while the flowers are as large as those of R. Dalhousiæ, and grow more in a cluster. I know nothing of the kind that exceeds in beauty the flowering branch of R. argenteum, with its wide spreading foliage and glorious mass of flowers. Oaks, laurels, maples, birch, chesnut, hydrangea, a species of fig (which is found on the very summit), and three Chinese and Japanese genera, are the principal features of the forest; the common bushes being Aucuba, Skimmia, and the curious Helwingia, which bears little clusters of flowers on the centre of the leaf, like butcher’s-broom. In spring immense broad-leaved arums spring up, with green or purple-striped hoods, that end in tail-like threads, eighteen inches long, which lie along the ground; and there are various kinds of Convallaria, Paris, Begonia, and other beautiful flowering herbs. Nearly thirty ferns may be gathered on this excursion, including many of great beauty and rarity, but the tree-fern does not ascend so high. Grasses are very rare in these woods, excepting the dwarf bamboo, now cultivated in the open air in England.

Before proceeding to narrate my different expeditions into Sikkim and Nepal from Dorjiling, I shall give a sketch of the different peoples and races composing the heterogeneous population of Sikkim and the neighbouring mountains.

The Lepcha is the aboriginal inhabitant of Sikkim, and the prominent character in Dorjiling, where he undertakes all sorts of out-door employment. The race to which he belongs is a very singular one; markedly Mongolian in features, and a good deal too, by imitation, in habit; still he differs from his Tibetan prototype, though not so decidedly as from the Nepalese and Bhotanese, between whom he is hemmed into a narrow tract of mountain country, barely 60 miles in breadth. The Lepchas possess a tradition of the flood, during which a couple escaped to the top of a mountain (Tendong) near Dorjiling. The earliest traditions which they have of their history date no further back than some three hundred years, when they describe themselves as having been long-haired, half-clad savages. At about that period they were visited by Tibetans, who introduced Boodh worship, the platting of their hair into pig-tails, and very many of their own customs. Their physiognomy is however so Tibetan in its character, that it cannot be supposed that this was their earliest intercourse with the trans-nivean races: whether they may have wandered from beyond the snows before the spread of Boodhism and its civilisation, or whether they are a cross between the Tamulian of India and the Tibetan, has not been decided. Their language, though radically identical with Tibetan, differs from it in many important particulars. They, or at least some of their tribes, call themselves Rong, and Arratt, and their country Dijong: they once possessed a great part of East Nepal, as far west as the Tambur river, and at a still earlier period they penetrated as far west as the Arun river.

An attentive examination of the Lepcha in one respect entirely contradicts our preconceived notions of a mountaineer, as he is timid, peaceful, and no brawler; qualities which are all the more remarkable from contrasting so strongly with those of his neighbours to the east and west: of whom the Ghorkas are brave and warlike to a proverb, and the Bhotanese quarrelsome, cowardly, and cruel. A group of Lepchas is exceedingly picturesque. They are of short stature—four feet eight inches to five feet—rather broad in the chest, and with muscular arms, but small hands and slender wrists.[35] The face is broad, flat, and of eminently Tartar character, flat-nosed and oblique-eyed, with no beard, and little moustache; the complexion is sallow, or often a clear olive; the hair is collected into an immense tail, plaited flat or round. The lower limbs are powerfully developed, befitting genuine mountaineers: the feet are small. Though never really handsome, and very womanish in the cast of countenance, they have invariably a mild, frank, and even engaging expression, which I have in vain sought to analyse, and which is perhaps due more to the absence of anything unpleasing, than to the presence of direct grace or beauty. In like manner, the girls are often very engaging to look upon, though without one good feature they are all smiles and good-nature; and the children are frank, lively, laughing urchins. The old women are thorough hags. Indolence, when left to themselves, is their besetting sin; they detest any fixed employment, and their foulness of person and garments renders them disagreeable inmates: in this rainy climate they are supportable out of doors. Though fond of bathing when they come to a stream in hot weather, and expert, even admirable swimmers, these people never take to the water for the purpose of ablution. In disposition they are amiable and obliging, frank, humorous, and polite, without the servility of the Hindoos; and their address is free and unrestrained. Their intercourse with one another and with Europeans is scrupulously honest; a present is divided equally amongst many, without a syllable of discontent or grudging look or word: each, on receiving his share, coming up and giving the donor a brusque bow and thanks. They have learnt to overcharge already, and use extortion in dealing, as is the custom with the people of the plains; but it is clumsily done, and never accompanied with the grasping air and insufferable whine of the latter. They are constantly armed with a long, heavy, straight knife,[36] but never draw it on one another: family and political feuds are alike unheard of amongst them.

[35] I have seldom been able to insert my own wrist (which is smaller than the average) into the wooden guard which the Lepcha wears on his left, as a protection against the bow-string: it is a curved ring of wood with an opening at one side, through which, by a little stretching, the wrist is inserted.

[36] It is called “Ban,” and serves equally for plough, toothpick, table-knife, hatchet, hammer, and sword.

The Lepcha is in morals far superior to his Tibet and Bhotan neighbours, polyandry being unknown, and polygamy rare. This is no doubt greatly due to the conventual system not being carried to such an excess as in Bhotan, where the ties of relationship even are disregarded.

Like the New Zealander, Tasmanian, Fuegian, and natives of other climates, which, though cold, are moist and equable, the Lepcha’s dress is very scanty, and when we are wearing woollen under-garments and hose, he is content with one cotton vesture, which is loosely thrown round the body, leaving one or both arms free; it reaches to the knee, and is gathered round the waist: its fabric is close, the ground colour white, ornamented with longitudinal blue stripes, two or three fingers broad, prettily worked with red and white. When new and clean, this garb is remarkably handsome and gay, but not showy. In cold weather an upper garment with loose sleeves is added. A long knife, with a common wooden handle, hangs by the side, stuck in a sheath; he has often also a quiver of poisoned arrows and a bamboo[37] bow across his back. On his right wrist is a curious wooden guard for the bowstring; and a little pouch, containing aconite poison and a few common implements, is suspended to his girdle. A hat he seldom wears, and when he does, it is often extravagantly broad and flat-brimmed, with a small hemispherical crown. It is made of leaves of Scitamineæ, between two thin plates of bamboo-work, clumsy and heavy; this is generally used in the rainy weather, while in the dry a conical one is worn, also of platted slips of bamboo, with broad flakes of talc between the layers, and a peacock’s feather at the side. The umbrella consists of a large hood, much like the ancient boat called a coracle, which being placed over the head reaches to the thighs behind. It is made of platted bamboo, enclosing broad leaves of Phrynium. A group of Lepchas with these on, running along in the pelting rain, are very droll figures; they look like snails with their shells on their backs. All the Lepchas are fond of ornaments, wearing silver hoops in their ears, necklaces made of cornelian, amber, and turquoise, brought from Tibet, and pearls and corals from the south, with curious silver and golden charm-boxes or amulets attached to their necks or arms. These are of Tibetan workmanship, and often of great value: they contain little idols, charms and written prayers, or the bones, hair, or nail-parings of a Lama: some are of great beauty, and highly ornamented. In these decorations, and in their hair, they take some pride, the ladies frequently dressing the latter for the gentlemen: thus one may often see, the last thing at night, a damsel of discreet port, demurely go behind a young man, unplait his pig-tail, teaze the hair, thin it of some of its lively inmates, braid it up for him, and retire. The women always wear two braided pig-tails, and it is by this they are most readily distinguished from their effeminate-looking partners, who wear only one.[38] When in full dress, the woman’s costume is extremely ornamental and picturesque; besides the shirt and petticoat she wears a small sleeveless woollen cloak, of gay pattern, usually covered with crosses, and fastened in front by a girdle of silver chains. Her neck is loaded with silver chains, amber necklaces, etc., and her head adorned with a coronet of scarlet cloth, studded with seed-pearls, jewels, glass beads, etc. The common dress is a long robe of indi, a cloth of coarse silk, spun from the cocoon of a large caterpillar that is found wild at the foot of the hills, and is also cultivated: it feeds on many different leaves, Sal (Shorea), castor-oil, etc.

[37] The bamboo, of which the quiver is made, is thin and light: it is brought from Assam, and called Tulda, or Dulwa, by the Bengalees.

[38] Ermann (Travels in Siberia, ii. p. 204) mentions the Buraet women as wearing two tails, and fillets with jewels, and the men as having one queue only.

In diet, they are gross feeders;[39] rice, however, forming their chief sustenance; it is grown without irrigation, and produces a large, flat, coarse grain, which becomes gelatinous, and often pink, when cooked. Pork is a staple dish: and they also eat elephant, and all kinds of animal food. When travelling, they live on whatever they can find, whether animal or vegetable. Fern-tops, roots of Scitamineæ, and their flower-buds, various leaves (it is difficult to say what not), and fungi, are chopped up, fried with a little oil, and eaten. Their cooking is coarse and dirty. Salt is costly, but prized; pawn (Betel pepper) is never eaten. Tobacco they are too poor to buy, and too indolent to grow and cure. Spices, oil, etc. are relished.

[39] Dr. Campbell’s definition of the Lepcha’s Flora cibaria, is, that he eats, or must have eaten, everything soft enough to chew; for, as he knows whatever is poisonous, he must have tried all; his knowledge being wholly empirical.

They drink out of little wooden cups, turned from knots of maple, or other woods; these are very curious on several accounts; they are very pretty, often polished, and mounted with silver. Some are supposed to be antidotes against poison, and hence fetch an enormous price; they are of a peculiar wood, rarer and paler-coloured. I have paid a guinea for one such, hardly different from the common sort, which cost but 4_d._ or 6_d._ MM. Huc and Gabet graphically allude to this circumstance, when wishing to purchase cups at Lhassa, where their price is higher, as they are all imported from the Himalaya. The knots from which they are formed, are produced on the roots of oaks, maples, and other mountain forest trees, by a parasitical plant, known to botanists, as Balanophora.

Their intoxicating drink, which seems more to excite than to debauch the mind, is partially fermented. Murwa grain (Eleusine Coracana). Spirits are rather too strong to be relished raw, and when a glass of wine is given to one of a party, he sips it, and hands it round to all the rest. A long bamboo flute, with four or six burnt holes far below the month-hole, is the only musical instrument I have seen in use among them. When travelling, and the fatigues of the day are over, the Lepchas will sit for hours chatting, telling stories, singing in a monotonous tone, or blowing this flute. I have often listened with real pleasure to the simple music of this rude instrument; its low and sweet tones are singularly Æolian, as are the airs usually played, which fall by octaves: it seems to harmonize with the solitude of their primæval forests, and he must have a dull ear who cannot draw from it the indication of a contented mind, whether he may relish its soft musical notes or not. Though always equipped for the chase, I fancy the Lepcha is no great sportsman; there is little to be pursued in this region, and he is not driven by necessity to follow what there is.

Their marriages are contracted in childhood, and the wife purchased by money, or by service rendered to the future father-in-law, the parties being often united before the woman leaves her parents’ roof, in cases where the payment is not forthcoming, and the bridegroom prefers giving his and his wife’s labour to the father for a stated period in lieu. On the time of service expiring, or the money being paid up, the marriage is publicly celebrated by feasting and riot. The females are generally chaste, and the marriage-tie is strictly kept, its violation being heavily punished by divorce, beating, slavery, etc. In cases of intermarriage with foreigners, the children belong to the father’s country. All the labours of the house, the field, and march, devolve on the women and children, or slaves if they have them.

Small-pox is dreaded, and infected persons often cruelly shunned: a suspicion of this or of cholera frequently emptying a village or town in a night. Vaccination has been introduced by Dr. Pearson, and it is much practised by Dr. Campbell; it being eagerly sought. Cholera is scarcely known at Dorjiling, and when it has been imported thither has never spread. Disease is very rare amongst the Lepchas; and ophthalmic, elephantiasis, and leprosy, the scourges of hot climates, are rarely known. Goitre prevails,[40] though not so conspicuously as amongst. Bhoteeas, Bhotanese, and others. Rheumatism is frequent, and intermittent fevers, with ague; also violent and often fatal remittents, almost invariably induced by sleeping in the hot valleys, especially at the beginning and end of the rains. The European complaints of liver and bowel disease are all but unknown. Death is regarded with horror. The dead are burnt or buried, sometimes both; much depending on custom and position. Omens are sought in the entrails of fowls, etc., and other vestiges of their savage origin are still preserved, though now gradually disappearing.

[40] oulder-strap in carrying loads be a predisposing cause of goitre, by inducing congestion of the laryngeal vessels? The Lepcha is certainly far more free from this disease than any of the tribes of E. Nepal I have mixed with, and he is both more idle and less addicted to the head-strap as a porter. I have seen it to be almost universal in some villages of Bhoteeas, where the head-strap alone is used in carrying in both summer and winter crops; as also amongst the salt-traders, or rather those families who carry the salt from the passes to the Nepalese villages, and who very frequently have no shoulder-straps, but invariably head-bands. I am far from attributing all goitre, even in the mountains, to this practice, but I think it is proved, that the disease is most prevalent in the mountainous regions of both the old and new world, and that in these the practice of supporting enormous loads by the cervical muscles is frequent. It is also found in the Himalayan sheep and goats which accompany the salt-traders, and whose loads are supported in ascending, by a band passing under the throat.

The Lepchas profess no religion, though acknowledging the existence of good and bad spirits. To the good they pay no heed; “Why should we?” they say, “the good spirits do us no harm; the evil spirits, who dwell in every rock, grove, and mountain, are constantly at mischief, and to them we must pray, for they hurt us.” Every tribe has a priest-doctor; he neither knows nor attempts to practise the healing art, but is a pure exorcist; all bodily ailments being deemed the operations of devils, who are cast out by prayers and invocations. Still they acknowledge the Lamas to be very holy men, and were the latter only moderately active, they would soon convert all the Lepchas. Their priests are called “Bijooas”: they profess mendicancy, and seem intermediate between the begging friars of Tibet, whose dress and attributes they assume, and the exorcists of the aboriginal Lepchas: they sing, dance (masked and draped like harlequins), beg, bless, curse, and are merry mountebanks; those that affect more of the Lama Boodhist carry the “Mani,” or revolving praying machine, and wear rosaries and amulets; others again are all tatters and rags. They are often employed to carry messages, and to transact little knaveries. The natives stand in some awe of them, and being besides of a generous disposition, keep the wallet of the Bijooa always full.

Such are some of the prominent features of this people, who inhabit the sub-Himalayas, between the Nepalese and Bhotan frontiers, at elevations of 3000 to 6000 feet. In their relations with us, they are conspicuous for their honesty, their power as carriers and mountaineers, and their skill as woodsmen; for they build a waterproof house with a thatch of banana leaves in the lower, or of bamboo in the elevated regions, and equip it with a table and bedsteads for three persons, in an hour, using no implement but their heavy knife. Kindness and good humour soon attach them to your person and service. A gloomy-tempered or morose master they avoid, an unkind one they flee. If they serve a good hills-man like themselves, they will follow him with alacrity, sleep on the cold, bleak mountain exposed to the pitiless rain, without a murmur, lay down the heavy burden to carry their master over a stream, or give him a helping hand up a rock or precipice—do anything, in short, but encounter a foe, for I believe the Lepcha to be a veritable coward.[41] It is well, perhaps, he is so: for if a race, numerically so weak, were to embroil itself by resenting the injuries of the warlike Ghorkas, or dark Bhotanese, the folly would soon lead to destruction.

[41] Yet, during the Ghorka war, they displayed many instances of courage: when so hard pressed, however, that there was little choice of evils.

Before leaving the Lepchas, it may be worth mentioning that the northern parts of the country, towards the Tibet frontier, are inhabited by Sikkim Bhoteeas[42] (or Kumpas), a mixed race calling themselves Kumpa Rong, or Kumpa Lepchas; but they are emigrants from Tibet, having come with the first rajah of Sikkim. These people are more turbulent and bolder than the Lepchas, and retain much of their Tibetan character, and even of that of the very province from which they came; which is north-east of Lhassa, and inhabited by robbers. All the accounts I have received of it agree with those given by MM. Huc and Gabet.

[42] Bhote is the general name for Tibet (not Bhotan), and Kumpa is a large province, or district, in that country. The Bhotanese, natives of Bhotan, or of the Dhurma country, are called Dhurma people, in allusion to their spiritual chief, the Dhurma Rajah. They are a darker and more powerful race, rude, turbulent, and Tibetan in language and religion, with the worst features of those people exaggerated. The various races of Nepal are too numerous to be alluded to here: they are all described in various papers by Mr. Hodgson, in the “Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.” The Dhurma people are numerous at Dorjiling; they are often runaways, but invariably prove more industrious settlers than the Lepchas. In the Himalaya the name Bhotan is unknown amongst the Tibetans; it signifies literally (according to Mr. Hodgson) the end of Bhote, or Tibet, being the eastern extreme of that country. The Lepchas designate Bhotan as Ayeu, or Aieu, as do often the Bhotanese themselves. Sikkim, again, is called Lhop, or Lho’, by the Lepchas and Bhotanese.

Next to the Lepchas, the most numerous tribe in Sikkim is that of the Limboos (called “Chung” by the Lepchas); they abound also in East Nepal, which they once ruled, inhabiting elevations from 2000 feet to 5000 feet. They are Boodhists, and though not divided into castes, belong to several tribes. All consider themselves as the earliest inhabitants of the Tambur Valley, though they have a tradition of having originally emigrated from Tibet, which their Tartar countenance confirms. They are more slender and sinewy than the Lepchas, and neither plait their hair nor wear ornaments; instead of the ban they use the Nepal curved knife, called “cookree,” while for the striped kirtle of the Lepcha are substituted loose cotton trousers and a tight jacket; a sash is worn round the middle, and on the head a small cotton cap. When they ruled over East Nepal, their system was feudal; and on their uniting against the Nepalese, they were with difficulty dislodged from their strongholds. They are said to be equally brave and cruel in battle, putting the old and weak to the sword, carrying the younger to slavery, and killing on the march such captives as are unable to proceed. Many enlist at Dorjiling, which the Lepchas never do; and the rajah of Nepal employs them in his army, where, however, they seldom obtain promotion, this being reserved for soldiers of Hindoo tribes. Latterly Jung Bahadur levied a force of 6000 of them, who were cantoned at Katmandoo, where the cholera breaking out, carried off some hundreds, causing many families who dreaded conscription to flock to Dorjiling. Their habits are so similar to those of the Lepchas, that they constantly intermarry. They mourn, burn, and bury their dead, raising a mound over the corpse, erecting a headstone, and surrounding the grave with a little paling of sticks; they then scatter eggs and pebbles over the ground. In these offices the Bijooa of the Lepchas is employed, but the Limboo has also priests of his own, called “Phedangbos,” who belong to rather a higher order than the Bijooas. They officiate at marriages, when a cock is put into the bridegroom’s hands, and a hen into those of the bride; the Phedangbo then cuts off the birds’ heads, when the blood is caught on a plantain leaf, and runs into pools from which omens are drawn. At death, guns are fired, to announce to the gods the departure of the spirit; of these there are many, having one supreme head, and to them offerings and sacrifices are made. They do not believe in metempsychosis.

The Limboo language is totally different from the Lepcha; with less of the z in it, and more labials and palatals, hence more pleasing. Its affinities I do not know; it has no peculiar written character, the Lepcha or Nagri being used. Dr. Campbell, from whom I have, derived most of my information respecting these people, was informed,[43] on good authority, that they had once a written language, now lost; and that it was compounded from many others by a sage of antiquity. The same authority stated that their Lepcha name “Chung” is a corruption of that of their place of residence; possibly the “Tsang” province of Tibet.

[43] See “Dorjiling Guide,” p. 89. Calcutta, 1845.

The Moormis are the only other native tribe remaining in any numbers in Sikkim, except the Tibetans of the loftier mountains (whom I shall mention at a future period), and the Mechis of the pestilential Terai, the forests of which they never leave. The Moormis are a scattered people, respecting whom I have no information, except from the authority quoted above. They are of Tibetan origin, and called “Nishung,” from being composed of two branches, respectively from the districts of Nimo and Shung, both on the road between Sikkim and Lhassa. They are now most frequent in central and eastern Nepal, and are a pastoral and agricultural people, inhabiting elevations of 4000 to 6000 feet, and living in stone houses, thatched with grass. They are a large, powerful, and active race, grave, very plain in features, with little hair on the face. Both their language and religion are purely Tibetan.

The Magras, a tribe now confined to Nepal west of the Arun, are aborigines of Sikkim, whence they were driven by the Lepchas westward into the country of the Limboos, and by these latter further west still. They are said to have been savages, and not of Tibetan origin, and are now converted to Hindooism. A somewhat mythical account of a wild people still inhabiting the Sikkim mountains, will be alluded to elsewhere.

It is curious to observe that these mountains do not appear to have afforded refuge to the Tamulian[44] aborigines of India proper; all the Himalayan tribes of Sikkim being markedly Mongolian in origin. It does not, however, follow that they are all of Tibetan extraction; perhaps, indeed, none but the Moormis are so. The Mechi of the Terai is decidedly Indo-Chinese, and of the same stock as the savage races of Assam, the north-east and east frontier of Bengal, Arracan, Burmah, etc. Both Lepchas and Limboos had, before the introduction of Lama Boodhism from Tibet, many features in common with the natives of Arracan, especially in their creed, sacrifices, faith in omens, worship of many spirits, absence of idols, and of the doctrine of metempsychosis. Some of their customs, too, are the same; the form of their houses and of some of their implements, their striped garments, their constant and, dexterous use of the bamboo for all utensils, their practice of night-attacks in war, of using poisoned arrows only in the chase, and that of planting “crow-feet” of sharp bamboo stakes along the paths an enemy is expected to follow. Such are but a few out of many points of resemblance, most of which struck me when reading Lieutenant Phayre’s account of Arracan,[45] and when travelling in the districts of Khasia and Cachar.

[44] The Tamulians are the Coles, Dangas, etc., of the mountains of Central India and the peninsula, who retired to mountain fastnesses, on the invasion of their country by the Indo-Germanic conquerors, who are now represented by the Hindoos.

[45] “Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.”

The laws affecting the distribution of plants, and the lower animals, materially influence the migrations of man also; and as the botany, zoology, and climate of the Malayan and Siamese peninsula advance far westwards into India, along the foot of the Himalaya, so do also the varieties of the human race. These features are most conspicuously displayed in the natives of Assam, on both sides of the Burrampooter, as far as the great bend of that river, beyond which they gradually disappear; and none of the Himalayan tribes east of that point practise the bloody and brutal rites in war that prevail amongst the Cookies, Khasias, Garrows, and other Indo-Chinese tribes of the mountain forests of Assam, Eastern Bengal, and the Malay peninsula.

I have not alluded to that evidence of the extraction of the Sikkim races, which is to be derived from their languages, and from which we may hope for a clue to their origin; the subject is at present under discussion, and involved in much obscurity.

That six or seven different tribes, without any feudal system or coercive head, with different languages and customs, should dwell in close proximity and in peace and unity, within the confined territory of Sikkim, even for a limited period, is an anomaly; the more especially when it is considered that except for a tincture of the Boodhist religion among some few of the people, they are all but savages, as low in the scale of intellect as the New Zealander or the Tahitian, and beneath those races in ingenuity and skill as craftsmen. Wars have been waged amongst them, but they were neither sanguinary nor destructive, and the fact remains no less remarkable, that at the period of our occupying Dorjiling, friendship and unanimity existed amongst all these tribes; from the Tibetan at 14,000 feet, to the Mechi of the plains; under a sovereign whose temporal power was wholly unsupported by even the semblance of arms, and whose spiritual supremacy was acknowledged by very few.

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Chapter VI

Excursion from Dorjiling to Great Rungeet—Zones of vegetation—Tree-ferns—Palms, upper limit of—Leebong, tea plantations—Ging—Boodhist remains—Tropical vegetation—Pines—Lepcha clearances—Forest fires—Boodhist monuments—Fig—Cane bridge and raft over Rungeet—Sago-palm—India-rubber—Yel Pote—Butterflies and other insects—Snakes—Camp—Temperature and humidity of atmosphere—Junction of Teesta and Rungeet—Return to Dorjiling—Tonglo, excursion to—Bamboo flowering—Oaks—Gordonia—Maize, hermaphrodite flowered—Figs—Nettles—Peepsa—Simonbong, cultivation at—European fruits at Dorjiling—Plains of India.

A very favourite and interesting excursion from Dorjiling is to the cane bridge over the Great Rungeet river, 6000 feet below the station. To this an excellent road has been cut, by which the whole descent of six miles, as the crow flies, is easily performed on pony-back; the road distance being only eleven miles. The scenery is, of course, of a totally different description from that of Sinchul, or even of the foot of the hills, being that of a deep mountain-valley. I several times made this trip; on the excursion about to be described, and in which I was accompanied by Mr. Barnes, I followed the Great Rungeet to the Teesta, into which it flows.

In descending from Dorjiling, the zones of vegetation are well marked between 6000 and 7000 feet by—1. The oak, chesnut, and Magnolias, the main features from 7000 to 10,000 feet.—2. Immediately below 6,500 feet, the tree-fern appears (Alsophila gigantea, Wall.), a widely-distributed plant, common to the Himalaya, from Nepal eastward to the Malayan peninsula, Java, and Ceylon.—3. Of palms, a species of Calamus, and Plectocomia, the “Rhenoul” of the Lepchas. The latter, though not a very large plant, climbs lofty trees, and extends about 40 yards through the forest; 6,500 feet is the upper limit of palms in the Sikkim Himalaya, the Rhenoul alone attaining this elevation.[46]—4. The fourth striking feature is a wild plantain, which ascends to nearly the same elevation (“Lukhlo,” Lepcha). This is replaced by another, and rather larger species, at lower elevations; both ripen austere and small fruits, which are full of seeds, and quite uneatable; that commonly grown in Sikkim is an introduced stock (nor have the wild species ever been cultivated); it is very large, but poor in flavour, and does not bear seeds. The zones of these conspicuous plants are very clearly defined, and especially if the traveller, standing on one of the innumerable spurs which project from the Dorjiling ridge, cast his eyes up the gorges of green on either hand.

[46] Four other Calami range between 1000 and 6000 feet on the outer hills, some of them being found forty miles distant from the plains of India. The other palms of Sikkim are, “Simong” (Caryota urens); it is rare, and ascends to nearly 5000 feet. Phœnix (probably P. acaulis, Buch.), a small, stemless species, which grows on the driest soil in the deep valleys; it is the “Schaap” of the Lepchas, who eat the young seeds, and use the feathery fronds as screens in hunting. Wallichia oblonjpgolia, the “Ooh” of the Lepchas, who make no use of it; Dr. Campbell and myself, however, found that it is an admirable fodder for horses, who prefer it to any other green food to be had in these mountains. Areca gracilis and Licuala peltata are the only other palms in Sikkim; but Cycas pectinata, with the India-rubber fig, occurs in the deepest and hottest valleys—the western limit of both these interesting plants. Of Pandanus there is a graceful species at elevations of 1000 to 4000 feet (“Borr,” Lepcha).

At 1000 feet below Dorjiling a fine wooded spur projects, called Leebong. This beautiful spot is fully ten degrees warmer than Mr. Hodgson’s house, and enjoys considerably more sunshine; peaches and English fruit-trees flourish extremely well, but do not ripen fruit. The tea-plant succeeds here admirably, and might be cultivated to great profit, and be of advantage in furthering a trade with Tibet. It has been tried on a large scale by Dr. Campbell at his residence (alt. 7000 feet), but the frosts and snow of that height injure it, as do the hailstorms in spring.

Below Leebong is the village of Ging, surrounded by steeps, cultivated with maize, rice, and millet. It is rendered very picturesque by a long row of tall poles, each bearing a narrow, vertically elongated banner, covered with Boodhist inscriptions, and surmounted by coronet-like ornaments, or spear-heads, rudely cut out of wood, or formed of basket-work, and adorned with cotton fringe. Ging is peopled by Bhotan emigrants, and when one dies, if his relations can afford to pay for them, two additional poles and flags are set up by the Lamas in honour of his memory, and that of Sunga, the third member of the Boodhist Trinity.

Below this the Gordonia commences, with Cedrela toona, and various tropical genera, such as abound near Punkabaree. The heat and hardness of the rocks cause the streams to dry up on these abrupt hills, especially on the eastern slope, and the water is therefore conveyed along the sides of the path, in conduits ingeniously made of bamboo, either split in half, or, what is better, whole, except at the septum, which is removed through a lateral hole. The oak and chesnut of this level (3000 feet), are both different from those which grow above, as are the brambles. The Arums are replaced by Caladiums. Tree-ferns cease below 4000 feet, and the large bamboo abounds.

At about 2000 feet, and ten miles distant from Dorjiling, we arrived at a low, long spur, dipping down to the bed of the Rungeet, at its junction with the Rungmo. This is close to the boundary of the British ground, and there is a guard-house, and a sepoy or two at it; here we halted. It took the Lepchas about twenty minutes to construct a table and two bedsteads within our tent; each was made of four forked sticks, stuck in the ground, supporting as many side-pieces, across which were laid flat split pieces of bamboo, bound tightly together by strips of rattan palm-stem. The beds were afterwards softened by many layers of bamboo-leaf, and if not very downy, they were dry, and as firm as if put together with screws and joints. This spur rises out of a deep valley, quite surrounded by lofty mountains; it is narrow, and covered with red clay, which the natives chew as a cure for goître. North, it looks down into a gully, at the bottom of which the Rungeet’s foamy stream winds through a dense forest. In the opposite direction, the Rungmo comes tearing down from the top of Sinchul, 7000 feet above; and though its roar is heard, and its course is visible throughout its length, the stream itself is nowhere seen, so deep does it cut its channel. Except on this, and a few similarly hard rocky hills around, the vegetation is a mass of wood and jungle. At this spot it is rather scanty and dry, with abundance of the Pinus lonjpgolia and Sal. The dwarf date-palm (Phœnix acaulis) also, was very abundant.

The descent to the river was exceedingly steep, the banks presenting an impenetrable jungle. The pines on the arid crests of the hills around formed a remarkable feature: they grow like the Scotch fir, the tall, red trunks springing from the steep and dry slopes. But little resin exudes from the stem, which, like that of most pines, is singularly free from lichens and mosses; its wood is excellent, and the charcoal of the burnt leaves is used as a pigment. Being confined to dry soil, this pine is local in Sikkim, and the elevation it attains here is not above 3000 feet. In Bhotan, where there is more dry country, its range is about the same, and in the north-west Himalaya, from 2,500 to 7000 feet.

The Lepcha never inhabits one spot for more than three successive years, after which an increased rent is demanded by the Rajah. He therefore squats in any place which he can render profitable for that period, and then moves to another. His first operation, after selecting a site, is to burn the jungle; then he clears away the trees, and cultivates between the stumps. At this season, firing the jungle is a frequent practice, and the effect by night is exceedingly fine; a forest, so dry and full of bamboo, and extending over such steep hills, affording grand blazing spectacles. Heavy clouds canopy the mountains above, and, stretching across the valleys, shut out the firmament; the air is a dead calm, as usual in these deep gorges, and the fires, invisible by day, are seen raging all around, appearing to an inexperienced eye in all but dangerous proximity. The voices of birds and insects being hushed, nothing is audible but the harsh roar of the rivers, and occasionally, rising far above it, that of the forest fires. At night we were literally surrounded by them; some smouldering, like the shale-heaps at a colliery, others fitfully bursting forth, whilst others again stalked along with a steadily increasing and enlarging flame, shooting out great tongues of fire, which spared nothing as they advanced with irresistible might. Their triumph is in reaching a great bamboo clump, when the noise of the flames drowns that of the torrents, and as the great stem-joints, burst, from the expansion of the confined air, the report is as that of a salvo from a park of artillery. At Dorjiling the blaze is visible, and the deadened reports of the bamboos bursting is heard throughout the night; but in the valley, and within a mile of the scene of destruction, the effect is the most grand, being heightened by the glare reflected from the masses of mist which hover above.

On the following morning we pursued a path to the bed of the river; passing a rude Booddhist monument, a pile of slate-rocks, with an attempt at the mystical hemisphere at top. A few flags or banners, and slabs of slate, were inscribed with “Om Mani Padmi om.” Placed on a jutting angle of the spur, backed with the pine-clad hills, and flanked by a torrent on either hand, the spot was wild and picturesque; and I could not but gaze with a feeling of deep interest on these emblems of a religion which perhaps numbers more votaries than any other on the face of the globe. Booddhism in some form is the predominating creed, from Siberia and Kamschatka to Ceylon, from the Caspian steppes to Japan, throughout China, Burmah, Ava, and a part of the Malayan Archipelago. Its associations enter into every book of travels over these vast regions, with Booddha, Dhurma, Sunga, Jos, Fo, and praying-wheels. The mind is arrested by the names, the imagination captivated by the symbols; and though I could not worship in the grove, it was impossible to deny to the inscribed stones such a tribute as is commanded by the first glimpse of objects which have long been familiar to our minds, but not previously offered to our senses. My head Lepcha went further: to a due observance of demon-worship he united a deep reverence for the Lamas, and he venerated their symbols rather as theirs than as those of their religion. He walked round the pile of stones three times from left to right repeating his “Om Mani,” etc., then stood before it with his head hung down and his long queue streaming behind, and concluded by a votive offering of three pine-cones. When done, he looked round at me, nodded, smirked, elevated the angles of his little turned-up eyes, and seemed to think we were safe from all perils in the valleys yet to be explored.

In the gorge of the Rungeet the heat was intolerable, though the thermometer did not rise above 95°. The mountains leave but a narrow gorge between them, here and there bordered by a belt of strong soil, supporting a towering crop of long cane-like grasses and tall trees. The troubled river, about eighty yards across, rages along over a gravelly bed. Crossing the Rungmo, where it falls into the Rungeet, we came upon a group of natives drinking fermented Murwa liquor, under a rock; I had a good deal of difficulty in getting my people past, and more in inducing one of the topers to take the place of a Ghorka (Nepalese) of our party who was ill with fever. Soon afterwards, at a most wild and beautiful spot, I saw, for the first time, one of the most characteristic of Himalayan objects of art, a cane bridge. All the spurs, round the bases of which the river flowed, were steep and rocky, their flanks clothed with the richest tropical forest, their crests tipped with pines. On the river’s edge, the Banana, Pandanus, and Bauhinia, were frequent, and Figs prevailed. One of the latter (of an exceedingly beautiful species) projected over the stream, growing out of a mass of rock, its roots interlaced and grasping at every available support, while its branches, loaded with deep glossy foliage, hung over the water.

This tree formed one pier for the canes; that on the opposite bank, was constructed of strong piles, propped with large stones; and between them swung the bridge,[47] about eighty yards long, ever rocking over the torrent (forty feet below). The lightness and extreme simplicity of its structure were very remarkable. Two parallel canes, on the same horizontal plane, were stretched across the stream; from them others hung in loops, and along the loops were laid one or two bamboo stems for flooring; cross pieces below this flooring, hung from the two upper canes, which they thus served to keep apart. The traveller grasps one of the canes in either hand, and walks along the loose bamboos laid on the swinging loops: the motion is great, and the rattling of the loose dry bamboos is neither a musical sound, nor one calculated to inspire confidence; the whole structure seeming as if about to break down. With shoes it is not easy to walk; and even with bare feet it is often difficult, there being frequently but one bamboo, which, if the fastening is loose, tilts up, leaving the pedestrian suspended over the torrent by the slender canes. When properly and strongly made, with good fastenings, and a floor of bamboos laid transversely, these bridges are easy to cross. The canes are procured from a species of Calamus; they are as thick as the finger, and twenty, or thirty yards long, knotted together; and the other pieces are fastened to them by strips of the same plant. A Lepcha, carrying one hundred and forty pounds on his back, crosses without hesitation, slowly but steadily, and with perfect confidence.

[47] A sketch of one of these bridges will be found in Vol. II.

A deep broad pool below the bridge was made available for a ferry: the boat was a triangular raft of bamboo stems, with a stage on the top, and it was secured on the opposite side of the stream, having a cane reaching across to that on which we were. A stout Lepcha leapt into the boiling flood, and boldly swam across, holding on by the cane, without which he would have been carried away. He unfastened the raft, and we drew it over by the cane, and, seated on the stage, up to our knees in water, we were pulled across; the raft bobbing up and down over the rippling stream.

We were beyond British ground, on the opposite bank, where any one guiding Europeans is threatened with punishment: we had expected a guide to follow us, but his non-appearance caused us to delay for some hours; four roads, or rather forest paths, meeting here, all of which were difficult to find. After a while, part of a marriage-procession came up, headed by the bridegroom, a handsome young Lepcha, leading a cow for the marriage feast; and after talking to him a little, he volunteered to show us the path. On the flats by the stream grew the Sago palm (Cycas pectinata), with a stem ten feet high, and a beautiful crown of foliage; the contrast between this and the Scotch-looking pine (both growing with oaks and palms) was curious. Much of the forest had been burnt, and we traversed large blackened patches, where the heat was intense, and increased by the burning trunks of prostrate trees, which smoulder for months, and leave a heap of white ashes. The larger timber being hollow in the centre, a current of air is produced, which causes the interior to burn rapidly, till the sides fall in, and all is consumed. I was often startled, when walking in the forest, by the hot blast proceeding from such, which I had approached without a suspicion of their being other than cold dead trunks.

Leaving the forest, the path led along the river bank, and over the great masses of rock which strewed its course. The beautiful India-rubber fig was common, as was Bassia butyracea, the “Yel Pote” of the Lepchas, from the seeds of which they express a concrete oil, which is received and hardens in bamboo vessels. On the forest-skirts, Hoya, parasitical Orchideæ, and Ferns, abounded; the Chaulmoogra, whose fruit is used to intoxicate fish, was very common; as was an immense mulberry tree, that yields a milky juice and produces a long green sweet fruit. Large fish, chiefly Cyprinoid, were abundant in the beautifully clear water of the river. But by far the most striking feature consisted in the amazing quantity of superb butterflies, large tropical swallow-tails, black, with scarlet or yellow eyes on their wings. They were seen everywhere, sailing majestically through the still hot air, or fluttering from one scorching rock to another, and especially loving to settle on the damp sand of the river-edge; where they sat by thousands, with erect wings, balancing themselves with a rocking motion, as their heavy sails inclined them to one side or the other; resembling a crowded fleet of yachts on a calm day. Such an entomological display cannot be surpassed. Cicindelæ were very numerous, and incredibly active, as were Grylli; and the great Cicadeæ were everywhere lighting on the ground, when they uttered a short sharp creaking sound, and anon disappeared, as if by magic. Beautiful whip-snakes were gleaming in the sun: they hold on by a few coils of the tail round a twig, the greater part of their body stretched out horizontally, occasionally retracting, and darting an unerring aim at some insect. The narrowness of the gorge, and the excessive steepness of the bounding hills, prevented any view, except of the opposite mountain face, which was one dense forest, in which the wild Banana was conspicuous.

Towards evening we arrived at another cane-bridge, still more dilapidated than the former, but similar in structure. For a few hundred yards before reaching it, we lost the path, and followed the precipitous face of slate-rocks overhanging the stream, which dashed with great violence below. Though we could not walk comfortably, even with our shoes off, the Lepchas, bearing their enormous loads, proceeded with perfect indifference.

Anxious to avoid sleeping at the bottom of the valley, we crawled, very much fatigued, through burnt dry forest, up a very sharp ridge, so narrow that the tent sat astride on it, the ropes being fastened to the tops of small trees on either slope. The ground swarmed with black ants, which got into our tea, sugar, etc., while it was so covered with charcoal, that we were soon begrimed. Our Lepchas preferred remaining on the river-bank, whence they had to bring up water to us, in great bamboo “chungis,” as they are called. The great dryness of this face is owing to its southern exposure: the opposite mountains, equally high and steep, being clothed in a rich green forest.

At nine the next morning, the temperature was 78°, but a fine cool easterly wind blew. Descending to the bed of the river, the temperature was 84°. The difference in humidity of the two stations (with about 300 feet difference in height) was more remarkable; at the upper, the wet bulb thermometer was 67·5°, and consequently the saturation point, 0·713; at the lower, the wet bulb was 68°, and saturation, 0·599. The temperature of the river was, at all hours of the preceding day, and this morning, 67·5°.[48]

[48] At this hour, the probable temperature at Dorjiling (6000 feet above this) would be 56°, with a temperature of wet bulb 55°, and the atmosphere loaded with vapour. At Calcutta, again, the temperature was at the observatory 98.·3°, wet bulb, 81.8°, and saturation=0·737. The dryness of the air, in the damper-looking and luxuriant river-bed, was owing to the heated rocks of its channel; while the humidity of the atmosphere over the drier-looking hill where we encamped, was due to the moisture of the wind then blowing.

Our course down the river was by so rugged a path, that, giddy and footsore with leaping from rock to rock, we at last attempted the jungle, but it proved utterly impervious. On turning a bend of the stream, the mountains of Bhotan suddenly presented themselves, with the Teesta flowing at their base; and we emerged at the angle formed by the junction of the Rungeet, which we had followed from the west, of the Teesta, coming from the north, and of their united streams flowing south.

We were not long before enjoying the water, when I was surprised to find that of the Teesta singularly cold; its temperature being 7° below that of the Rungeet.[49] At the salient angle (a rocky peninsula) of their junction, we could almost place one foot in the cold stream and the other in the warmer. There is a no less marked difference in the colour of the two rivers; the Teesta being sea-green and muddy, the Great Rungeet dark green and very clear; and the waters, like those of the Arve and Rhone at Geneva, preserve their colours for some hundred yards; the line separating the two being most distinctly drawn. The Teesta, or main stream, is much the broadest (about 80 or 100 yards wide at this season), the most rapid and deep. The rocks which skirt its bank were covered with a silt or mud deposit, which I nowhere observed along the Great Rungeet, and which, as well as its colour and coldness, was owing to the vast number of then melting glaciers drained by this river. The Rungeet, on the other hand, though it rises amongst the glaciers of Kinchinjunga and its sister peaks, is chiefly supplied by the rainfall of the outer ranges of Sinchul and Singalelah, and hence its waters are clear, except during the height of the rains.

[49] This is, no doubt, due partly to the Teesta flowing south, and thus having less of the sun, and partly to its draining snowy mountains throughout a much longer portion of its course. The temperature of the one was 67·5°, and that of the other 60·5°.

From this place we returned to Dorjiling, arriving on the afternoon of the following day.

The most interesting trip to be made from Dorjiling, is that to the summit of Tonglo, a mountain on the Singalelah range, 10,079 feet high, due west of the station, and twelve miles in a straight line, but fully thirty by the path.[50]

[50] A full account of the botanical features noticed on this excursion (which I made in May, 1848, with Mr. Barnes) has appeared in the “London Journal of Botany,” and the “Horticultural Society’s Journal,” and I shall, therefore, recapitulate its leading incidents only.

Leaving the station by a native path, the latter plunges at once into a forest, and descends very rapidly, occasionally emerging on cleared spurs, where are fine crops of various millets, with much maize and rice. Of the latter grain as many as eight or ten varieties are cultivated, but seldom irrigated, which, owing to the dampness of the climate, is not necessary: the produce is often eighty-fold, but the grain is large, coarse, reddish, and rather gelatinous when boiled. After burning the timber, the top soil is very fertile for several seasons, abounding in humus, below which is a stratum of stiff clay, often of great thickness, produced by the disintegration of the rocks;[51] the clay makes excellent bricks, and often contains nearly 30 per cent. of alumina.

[51] An analysis of the soil will be found in the Appendix.

At about 4000 feet the great bamboo (“Pao” Lepcha) abounds; it flowers every year, which is not the case with all others of this genus, most of which flower profusely over large tracts of country, once in a great many years, and then die away; their place being supplied by seedlings, which grow with immense rapidity. This well-known fact is not due, as some suppose, to the life of the species being of such a duration, but to favourable circumstances in the season. The Pao attains a height of 40 to 60 feet, and the culms average in thickness the human thigh; it is used for large water-vessels, and its leaves form admirable thatch, in universal use for European houses at Dorjiling. Besides this, the Lepchas are acquainted with nearly a dozen kinds of bamboo; these occur at various elevations below 12,000 feet, forming, even in the pine-woods, and above their zone, in the skirts of the Rhododendron scrub, a small and sometimes almost impervious jungle. In an economical point of view they maybe classed as those which split readily, and those which do not. The young shoots of several are eaten, and the seeds of one are made into a fermented drink, and into bread in times of scarcity; but it would take many pages to describe the numerous purposes to which the various species are put.

Gordonia is their most common tree (G. Wallichii), much prized for ploughshares and other purposes requiring a hard wood: it is the “Sing-brang-kun” of the Lepchas, and ascends to 4000 feet. Oaks at this elevation occur as solitary trees, of species different from those of Dorjiling. There are three or four with a cup-shaped involucre, and three with spinous involucres enclosing an eatable sweet nut; these generally grow on a dry clayey soil.

Some low steep spurs were well cultivated, though the angle of the field was upwards of 25°; the crops, chiefly maize, were just sprouting. This plant is occasionally hermaphrodite in Sikkim, the flowers forming a large drooping panicle and ripening small grains; it is, however, a rare occurrence, and the specimens are highly valued by the people.

The general prevalence of figs,[52] and their allies, the nettles,[53] is a remarkable feature in the botany of the Sikkim Himalaya, up to nearly 10,000 feet. Of the former there were here five species, some bearing eatable and very palatable fruit of enormous size, others with the fruit small and borne on prostrate, leafless branches, which spring from the root and creep along the ground.

[52] One species of this very tropical genus ascends almost to 9000 feet on the outer ranges of Sikkim.

[53] Of two of these cloth is made, and of a third, cordage. The tops of two are eaten, as are several species of Procris. The “Poa” belongs to this order, yielding that kind of grass cloth fibre, now abundantly imported into England from the Malay Islands, and used extensively for shirting.

A troublesome, dipterous insect (the “Peepsa,” a species of Siamulium) swarms on the banks of the streams; it is very small and black, floating like a speck before the eye; its bite leaves a spot of extravasated blood under the cuticle, very irritating if not opened.

Crossing the Little Rungeet river, we camped on the base of Tonglo. The night was calm and clear, with faint cirrus, but no dew. A thermometer sunk two feet in rich vegetable mould stood at 78° two hours after it was lowered, and the same on the following morning. This probably indicates the mean temperature of the month at that spot, where, however, the dark colour of the exposed loose soil must raise the temperature considerably.

May 20th.—The temperature at sunrise was 67°; the morning bright, and clear over head, but the mountains looked threatening. Dorjiling, perched on a ridge 5000 feet above us, had a singular appearance. We ascended the Simonbong spur of Tonglo, so called from a small village and Lama temple of that name on its summit; where we arrived at noon, and passing some chaits[54] gained the Lama’s residence.

[54] The chait of Sikkim, borrowed from Tibet, is a square pedestal, surmounted with a hemisphere, the convex end downwards, and on it is placed a cone, with a crescent on the top. These are erected as tombs to Lamas, and as monuments to illustrious persons, and are venerated accordingly, the people always passing them from left to right, often repeating the invocation, “Ora Mani Padmi om.”

Two species of bamboo, the “Payong” and “Praong” of the Lepchas, here replace the Pao of the lower regions. The former was flowering abundantly, the whole of the culms (which were 20 feet high) being a diffuse panicle of inflorescence. The “Praong” bears a round head of flowers at the ends of the leafy branches. Wild strawberry, violet, geranium, etc., announced our approach to the temperate zone. Around the temple were potato crops and peach-trees, rice, millet, yam, brinjal (egg-apple), fennel, hemp (for smoking its narcotic leaves), and cummin, etc. The potato thrives extremely well as a summer crop, at 7000 feet, in Sikkim, though I think the root (from the Dorjiling stock) cultivated as a winter crop in the plains, is superior both in size and flavour. Peaches never ripen in this part of Sikkim, apparently from the want of sun; the tree grows well at from 3000 to 7000 feet elevation, and flowers abundantly; the fruit making the nearest approach to maturity (according to the elevation) from July to October. At Dorjiling it follows the English seasons, flowering in March and fruiting in September, when the scarce reddened and still hard fruit falls from the tree. In the plains of India, both this and the plum ripen in May, but the fruits are very acid.

It is curious that throughout this temperate region, there is hardly an eatable fruit except the native walnut, and some brambles, of which the “yellow” and “ground raspberry” are the best, some insipid figs, and a very austere crab-apple. The European apple will scarcely ripen,[55] and the pear not at all. Currants and gooseberries show no disposition to thrive, and strawberries are the only fruits that ripen at all, which they do in the greatest abundance. Vines, figs, pomegranates, plums, apricots, etc., will not succeed even as trees. European vegetables again grow, and thrive remarkably well throughout the summer of Dorjiling, and the produce is very fair, sweet and good, but inferior in flavour to the English.

[55] This fruit, and several others, ripen at Katmandoo, in Nepal (alt. 4000 feet), which place enjoys more sunshine than Sikkim. I have, however, received very differedt accounts of the produce, which, on the whole, appears to be inferior.

Of tropical fruits cultivated below 4000 feet, oranges and indifferent bananas alone are frequent, with lemons of various kinds. The season for these is, however, very short; though that of the plantain might with care be prolonged; oranges abound in winter, and are excellent, but neither so large nor free of white pulp as those of the Khasia hills, the West Indies, or the west coast of Africa. Mangos are brought from the plains, for though wild in Sikkim, the cultivated kinds do not thrive; I have seen the pine-apple plant, but I never met with good fruit on it.

A singular and almost total absence of the light, and of the direct rays of the sun in the ripening season, is the cause of this dearth of fruit. Both the farmer and orchard gardener in England know full well the value of a bright sky as well as of a warm autumnal atmosphere. Without this corn does not ripen, and fruit-trees are blighted. The winter of the plains of India being more analogous in its distribution of moisture and heat to a European summer, such fruits as the peach, vine, and even plum, fig, strawberry, etc., may be brought to bear well in March, April, and May, if they are only carefully tended through the previous hot and damp season, which is, in respect to the functions of flowering and fruiting, their winter.

Hence it appears that, though some English fruits will turn the winter solstice of Bengal (November to May) into summer, and then flower and fruit, neither these nor others will thrive in the summer of 7000 feet on the Sikkim Himalaya, (though its temperature so nearly approaches that of England,) on account of its rain and fogs. Further, they are often exposed to a winter’s cold equal to the average of that of London, the snow lying for a week on the ground, and the thermometer descending to 25°. It is true that in no case is the extreme of cold so great here as in England, but it is sufficient to check vegetation, and to prevent fruit-trees from flowering till they are fruiting in the plains. There is in this respect a great difference between the climate of the central and eastern and western Himalaya, at equal elevations. In the western (Kumaon, etc.) the winters are colder than in Sikkim—the summers warmer and less humid. The rainy season is shorter, and the sun shines so much more frequently between the heavy showers, that the apple and other fruits are brought to a much better state. It is true that the rain-gauge may show as great a fall there, but this is no measure of the humidity of the atmosphere, and still less so of the amount of the sun’s direct light and heat intercepted by aqueous vapour, for it takes no account of the quantity of moisture suspended in the air, nor of the depositions from fogs, which are far more fatal to the perfecting of fruits than the heaviest brief showers. The Indian climate, which is marked by one season of excessive humidity and the other of excessive drought, can never be favourable to the production either of good European or tropical fruits. Hence there is not one of the latter peculiar to the country, and perhaps but one which arrives at full perfection; namely, the mango. Tile plantains, oranges, and pine-apples are less abundant, of inferior kinds, and remain a shorter season in perfection than they do in South America, the West Indies, or Western Africa.

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Chapter VII

Continue the ascent of Tonglo—Trees—Lepcha construction of hut—Simsibong—Climbing-trees—Frogs—Magnolias, etc.—Ticks—Leeches—Cattle, murrain amongst—Summit of Tonglo—Rhododendrons—Skimmia—Yew—Rose—Aconite—Bikh poison—English genera of plants—Ascent of tropical orders—Comparison with south temperate zone—Heavy rain—Temperature, etc.—Descent—Simonbong temple—Furniture therein—Praying-cylinder—Thigh-bone trumpet—Morning orisons—Present of Murwa beer, etc.

Continuing the ascent of Tonglo, we left cultivation and the poor groves of peaches at 4000 to 5000 feet (and this on the eastern exposure, which is by far the sunniest), the average height which agriculture reaches in Sikkim.

Above Simonbong, the path up Tonglo is little frequented: it is one of the many routes between Nepal and Sikkim, which cross the Singalelah spur of Kinchinjunga at various elevations between 7000 and 15,000 feet. As usual, the track runs along ridges, wherever these are to be found, very steep, and narrow at the top, through deep humid forests of oaks and Magnolias, many laurels, both 1 Tetranthera and Cinnamomum, one species of the latter ascending to 8,500 feet, and one of Tetranthera to 9000. Chesnut and walnut here appeared, with some leguminous trees, which however did not ascend to 6000 feet. Scarlet flowers of Vaccinium serpens, an epiphytical species, were strewed about, and the great blossoms of Rhododendron Dalhousiæ and of a Magnolia (Talaunaa Hodgsoni) lay together on the ground. The latter forms a large tree, with very dense foliage, and deep shining green leaves, a foot to eighteen inches long. Most of its flowers drop unexpanded from the tree, and diffuse a very aromatic smell; they are nearly as large as the fist, the outer petals purple, the inner pure white.

Heavy rain came on at 3 p.m., obliging us to take insufficient shelter under the trees, and finally to seek the nearest camping-ground. For this purpose we ascended to a spring, called Simsibong, at an elevation of 6000 feet. The narrowness of the ridge prevented our pitching the tent, small as it was; but the Lepchas rapidly constructed a house, and thatched it with bamboo and the broad leaves of the wild plantain. A table was then raised in the middle, of four posts and as many cross pieces of wood, lashed with strips of bamboo. Across these, pieces of bamboo were laid, ingeniously flattened, by selecting cylinders, crimping them all round, and then slitting each down one side, so that it opens into a flat slab. Similar but longer and lower erections, one on each side the table, formed bed or chair; and in one hour, half a dozen men, with only long knives and active hands, had provided us with a tolerably water-tight furnished house. A thick flooring of bamboo leaves kept the feet dry, and a screen of that and other foliage all round rendered the habitation tolerably warm.

At this elevation we found great scandent trees twisting around the trunks of others, and strangling them: the latter gradually decay, leaving the sheath of climbers as one of the most remarkable vegetable phenomena of these mountains. These climbers belong to several orders, and may be roughly classified in two groups.—(1.) Those whose sterns merely twine, and by constricting certain parts of their support, induce death.—(2.) Those which form a network round the trunk, by the coalescence of their lateral branches and aerial roots, etc.: these wholly envelop and often conceal the tree they enclose, whose branches appear rising far above those of its destroyer. To the first of these groups belong many natural orders, of which the most prominent are—Leguminosæ, ivies, hydrangea, vines, Pothos, etc. The inosculating ones are almost all figs and Wightia: the latter is the most remarkable, and I add a cut of its grasping roots, sketched at our encampment.

Except for the occasional hooting of an owl, the night was profoundly still during several hours after dark—the cicadas at this season not ascending so high on the mountain. A dense mist shrouded every thing, and the rain pattered on the leaves of our hut. At midnight a tree-frog (“Simook,” Lepcha) broke the silence with his curious metallic clack, and others quickly joined the chorus, keeping up their strange music till morning. Like many Batrachians, this has a voice singularly unlike that of any other organised creature. The cries of beasts, birds, and insects are all explicable to our senses, and we can recognise most of them as belonging to such or such an order of animal; but the voices of many frogs are like nothing else, and allied species utter totally dissimilar noises. In some, as this, the sound is like the concussion of metals; in others, of the vibration of wires or cords; anything but the natural effects of lungs, larynx, and muscles.[56]

[56] A very common Tasmanian species utters a sound that appears to ring in an underground vaulted chamber, beneath the feet.

May 21.—Early this morning we proceeded upwards, our prospect more gloomy than ever. The path, which still lay up steep ridges, was very slippery, owing to the rain upon the clayey soil, and was only passable from the hold afforded by interlacing roots of trees. At 8000 feet, some enormous detached masses of micaceous gneiss rose abruptly from the ridge, they were covered with mosses and ferns, and from their summit, 7000 feet, a good view of the surrounding vegetation is obtained. The mast of the forest is formed of:—(1) Three species of oak, of which Q. annulata? with immense lamellated acorns, and leaves sixteen inches long, is the tallest and the most abundant.—(2) Chesnut.—(3) Laurineæ of several species, all beautiful forest-trees, straight-holed, and umbrageous above.—(4) Magnolias.[57]—(5) Arborescent rhododendrons, which commence here with the R. arboreum. At 8000 and 9000 feet, a considerable change is found in the vegetation; the gigantic purple Magnolia Campbellii replacing the white; chesnut disappears, and several laurels: other kinds of maple are seen, with Rhododendron argenteum, and Stauntonia, a handsome climber, which has beautiful pendent clusters of lilac blossoms.

[57] Other trees were Pyrus, Saurauja (both an erect and climbing species), Olea, cherry, birch, alder, several maples, Hydrangea, one species of fig, holly, and several Araliaceous trees. Many species of Magnoliaceæ (including the genera Magnolia, Michelia, and Talauma) are found in Sikkim: Magnolia Campbellii, of 10,000 feet, is the most superb species known. In books on botanical geography, the magnolias are considered as most abounding in North America, east of the Rocky Mountains; but this is a great mistake, the Indian mountains and islands being the centre of this natural order.

At 9000 feet we arrived on a long flat covered with lofty trees, chiefly purple magnolias, with a few oaks, great Pyri and two rhododendrons, thirty to forty feet high (R. barbatum, and R. arboreum, var. roseum): Skimmia and Symplocos were the common shrubs. A beautiful orchid with purple flowers (Cælogyne Wallichii) grew on the trunks of all the great trees, attaining a higher elevation than most other epiphytical species, for I have seen it at 10,000 feet.

A large tick infests the small bamboo, and a more hateful insect I never encountered. The traveller cannot avoid these insects coming on his person (sometimes in great numbers) as he brushes through the forest; they get inside his dress, and insert the proboscis deeply without pain. Buried head and shoulders, and retained by a barbed lancet, the tick is only to be extracted by force, which is very painful. I have devised many tortures, mechanical and chemical, to induce these disgusting intruders to withdraw the proboscis, but in vain. Leeches[58] also swarm below 7000 feet; a small black species above 3000 feet, and a large yellow-brown solitary one below that elevation.

[58] I cannot but think that the extraordinary abundance of these Anelides in Sikkim may cause the death of many animals. Some marked murrains have followed very wet seasons, when the leeches appear in incredible numbers; and the disease in the cattle, described to me by the Lepchas as in the stomach, in no way differs from what leeches would produce. It is a well-known fact, that these creatures have lived for days in the fauces, nares, and stomachs of the human subject, causing dreadful sufferings, and death. I have seen the cattle feeding in places where the leeches so abounded, that fifty or sixty were frequently together on my ankles; and ponies are almost maddened by their biting the fetlocks.

Our ascent to the summit was by the bed of a watercourse, now a roaring torrent, from the heavy and incessant rain. A small Anagallis (like tenella), and a beautiful purple primrose, grew by its bank. The top of the mountain is another flat ridge, with depressions and broad pools. The number of additional species of plants found here was great, and all betokened a rapid approach to the alpine region of the Himalaya. In order of prevalence the trees were,—the scarlet Rhododendron arboreum and barbatum, as large bushy trees, both loaded with beautiful flowers and luxuriant foliage; R. Falconeri, in point of foliage the most superb of all the Himalayan species, with trunks thirty feet high, and branches bearing at their ends only leaves eighteen inches long: these are deep green above, and covered beneath with a rich brown down. Next in abundance to these were shrubs of Skimmia Laureola,[59] Symplocos, and Hydrangea; and there were still a few purple magnolias, very large Pyri, like mountain ash, and the common English yew, eighteen feet in circumference, the red bark of which is used as a dye, and for staining the foreheads of Brahmins in Nepal. An erect white-flowered rose (R. sericea, the only species occurring in Southern Sikkim) was very abundant: its numerous inodorous flowers are pendent, apparent as a protection from the rain; and it is remarkable as being the only species having four petals instead of five.

[59] This plant has been lately introduced into English gardens, from the north-west Himalaya, and is greatly admired for its aromatic, evergreen foliage, and clusters of scarlet berries. It is a curious fact, that this plant never bears scarlet berries in Sikkim, apparently owing to the want of sun; the fruit ripens, but is of a greenish-red or purplish colour.

A currant was common, always growing epiphytically on the trunks of large trees. Two or three species of Berberry, a cherry, Andromeda, Daphne, and maple, nearly complete, I think, the list of woody plants. Amongst the herbs were many of great interest, as a rhubarb, and Aconitum palmatum, which yields one of the celebrated “Bikh” poisons.[60] Of European genera I found Thalictrum, Anemone, Fumaria, violets, Stellaria, Hypericum, two geraniums, balsams, Epilobium, Potentilla, Paris and Convallariæ, one of the latter has verticillate leaves, and its root also called “bikh,” is considered a very virulent poison.

[60] “Bikh” is yielded by various Aconita. All the Sikkim kinds are called “gniong” by Lepchas and Bhoteeas, who do not distinguish them. The A. Napellus is abundant in the north-west Himalaya, and is perhaps as virulent a Bikh as any species.

Still, the absence or rarity at this elevation of several very large natural families,[61] which have numerous representatives at and much below the same level in the inner ranges, and on the outer of the Western Himalaya, indicate a certain peculiarity in Sikkim. On the other hand, certain tropical genera are more abundant in the temperate zone of the Sikkim mountains, and ascend much higher there than in the Western Himalaya: of this fact I have cited conspicuous examples in the palms, plantains, and tree-ferns. This ascent and prevalence of tropical species is due to the humidity and equability of the climate in this temperate zone, and is, perhaps, the direct consequence of these conditions. An application of the same laws accounts for the extension of similar features far beyond the tropical limit in the Southern Ocean, where various natural orders, which do not cross the 30th and 40th parallels of N. latitude, are extended to the 55th of S. latitude, and found in Tasmania, New Zealand, the so-called Antarctic Islands south of that group, and at Cape Horn itself.

[61] _Ranunculaceæ, Fumariæ, Cruciferæ, Alsineæ, Geranicæ, Leguminosæ, Potentilla, Epilobium, Crassulaceæ, Saxifrageæ, Umbelliferæ, Lonicera, Valerianeæ, Dipsaceæ,_ various genera of _Compositæ, Campanulaceæ, Lobeliaceæ, Gentianeæ, Boragineæ, Scrophularineæ, Primulaceæ, Gramineæ._

The rarity of Pines is perhaps the most curious feature in the botany of Tonglo, and on the outer ranges of Sikkim; for, between the level of 2,500 feet (the upper limit of P. longifolia) and 10,000 feet (that of the Taxus), there is no coniferous tree whatever in Southern Sikkim.

We encamped amongst Rhododendrons, on a spongy soil of black vegetable matter, so oozy, that it was difficult to keep the feet dry. The rain poured in torrents all the evening, and with the calm, and the wetness of the wood, prevented our enjoying a fire. Except a transient view into Nepal, a few miles west of us, nothing was to be seen, the whole mountain being wrapped in dense masses of vapour. Gusts of wind, not felt in the forest, whistled through the gnarled and naked tree-tops; and though the temperature was 50°, this wind produced cold to the feelings. Our poor Lepchas were miserably off, but always happy: under four posts and a bamboo-leaf thatch, with no covering but a single thin cotton garment, they crouched on the sodden turf, joking with the Hindoos of our party, who, though supplied with good clothing and shelter, were doleful companions.

I made a shed for my instruments under a tree; Mr. Barnes, ever active and ready, floored the tent with logs of wood, and I laid a “corduroy road” of the same to my little observatory.

During the night the rain did not abate; and the tent-roof leaked in such torrents, that we had to throw pieces of wax-cloth over our shoulders as we lay in bed. There was no improvement whatever in the weather on the following morning. Two of the Hindoos had crawled into the tent during the night, attacked with fever and ague.[62] The tent being too sodden to be carried, we had to remain where we were, and with abundance of novelty in the botany around, I found no difficulty in getting through the day. Observing the track of sheep, we sent two Lepchas to follow them, who returned at night from some miles west in Nepal, bringing two. The shepherds were Geroongs of Nepal, who were grazing their flocks on a grassy mountain top, from which the woods had been cleared, probably by fire. The mutton was a great boon to the Lepchas, but the Hindoos would not touch it, and several more sickening during the day, we had the tent most uncomfortably full.

[62] It is a remarkable fact, that both the natives of the plains, under many circumstances, and the Lepchas when suffering from protracted cold and wet, take fever and ague in sharp attacks. The disease is wholly unknown amongst Europeans residing above 4000 feet, similar exposure in whom brings on rheumatism and cold.

During the whole of the 22nd, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., the thermometer never varied 6·5°, ranging from 47·5 in the morning to 54°, its maximum, at 1 p.m., and 50·75 at night. At seven the following morning it was the same. One, sunk two feet six inches in mould and clay, stood constantly at 50·75. The dew-point was always below the temperature, at which I was surprised, for more drenching weather could not well be. The mean dew-point was 50·25, and consequent humidity, 0·973.

These observations, and those of the barometer, were taken 60 feet below the summit, to which I moved the instruments on the morning of the 23rd. At a much more exposed spot the results would no doubt have been different, for a thermometer, there sunk to the same depth as that below, stood at 49·75 (or one degree colder than 60 feet lower down). My barometrical observations, taken simultaneously with those of Calcutta, give the height of Tonglo, 10,078·3 feet; Colonel Waugh’s, by trigonometry, 10,079·4 feet,—a remarkable and unusual coincidence.

May 23.—We spent a few hours of alternate fog and sunshine on the top of the mountain, vainly hoping for the most modest view; our inability to obtain it was extremely disappointing, for the mountain commands a superb prospect, which I enjoyed fully in the following November, from a spot a few miles further west. The air, which was always foggy, was alternately cooled and heated, as it blew over the trees, or the open space we occupied; sometimes varying 5° and 6° in a quarter of an hour.

Having partially dried the tent in the wind, we commenced the descent, which owing to the late torrents of rain, was most fatiguing and slippery; it again commenced to drizzle at noon, nor was it till we had descended to 6000 feet that we emerged from the region of clouds. By dark we arrived at Simonbong, having descended 5000 feet, at the rate of 1000 feet an hour; and were kindly received by the Lama, who gave us his temple for the accommodation of the whole party. We were surprised at this, both because the Sikkim authorities had represented the Lamas as very averse to Europeans, and because he might well have hesitated before admitting a promiscuous horde of thirty people into a sacred building, where the little valuables on the altar, etc., were quite at our disposal. A better tribute could not well have been paid to the honesty of my Lepcha followers. Our host only begged us not to disturb his people, nor to allow the Hindoos of our party to smoke inside.

Simonbong is one of the smallest and poorest Gumpas, or temples, in Sikkim: unlike the better class, it is built of wood only. It consisted of one large room, with small sliding shutter windows, raised on a stone foundation, and roofed with shingles of wood; opposite the door a wooden altar was placed, rudely chequered with black, white, and red; to the right and left were shelves, with a few Tibetan books, wrapped in silk; a model of Symbonath temple in Nepal, a praying-cylinder,[63] and some implements for common purposes, bags of juniper, English wine-bottles and glasses, with tufts of Abies Webbiana, rhododendron flowers, and peacock’s feathers, besides various trifles, clay ornaments and offerings, and little Hindoo idols. On the altar were ranged seven little brass cups, full of water; a large conch shell, carved with the sacred lotus; a brass jug from Lhassa, of beautiful design, and a human thigh-bone, hollow, and perforated through both condyles.[64]

[63] It consisted of a leathern cylinder placed upright in a frame; a projecting piece of iron strikes a little bell at each revolution, the revolution being caused by an elbowed axle and string. Within the cylinder are deposited written prayers, and whoever pulls the string properly is considered to have repeated his prayers as often as the bell rings. Representations of these implements will be found in other parts of these volumes.

[64] To these are often added a double-headed rattle, or small drum, formed of two crowns of human skulls, cemented back to back; each face is then covered with parchment, and encloses some pebbles. Sometimes this instrument is provided with a handle.

Facing the altar was a bench and a chair, and on one side a huge tambourine, with two curved iron drum-sticks. The bench was covered with bells, handsomely carved with idols, and censers with juniper-ashes; and on it lay the dorge, or double-headed thunderbolt, which the Lama holds in his hand during service. Of all these articles, the human thigh-bone is by much the most curious; it is very often that of a Lama, and is valuable in proportion to its length.[65] As, however, the Sikkim Lamas are burned, the relics are generally procured from Tibet, where the corpses are cut in pieces and thrown to the kites, or into the water.

[65] It is reported at Dorjiling, that one of the first Europeans buried at this station, being a tall man, was disinterred by the resurrectionist Bhoteeas for his trumpet-bones.

Two boys usually reside in the temple, and their beds were given up to us, which being only rough planks laid on the floor, proved clean in one sense, but contrasted badly with the springy couch of bamboo the Lepcha makes, which renders carrying a mattress or aught but blankets superfluous.

May 24.—We were awakened at daylight by the discordant orisons of the Lama; these commenced by the boys beating the great tambourine, then blowing the conch-shells, and finally the trumpets and thigh-bone. Shortly the Lama entered, clad in scarlet, shorn and barefooted, wearing a small red silk mitre, a loose gown girt round the middle, and an under-garment of questionable colour, possibly once purple. He walked along, slowly muttering his prayers, to the end of the apartment, whence he took a brass bell and dorge, and, sitting down cross-legged, commenced matins, counting his beads, or ringing the bell, and uttering most dismal prayers. After various disposals of the cups, a larger bell was violently rung for some minutes, himself snapping his fingers and uttering most unearthly sounds. Finally, incense was brought, of charcoal with juniper-sprigs; it was swung about, and concluded the morning service to our great relief, for the noises were quite intolerable. Fervid as the devotions appeared, to judge by their intonation, I fear the Lama felt more curious about us than was proper under the circumstances; and when I tried to sketch him, his excitement knew no bounds; he fairly turned round on the settee, and, continuing his prayers and bell-accompaniment, appeared to be exorcising me, or some spirit within me.

After breakfast the Lama came to visit us, bringing rice, a few vegetables, and a large bamboo-work bowl, thickly varnished with india-rubber, and waterproof, containing half-fermented millet. This mixture, called Murwa, is invariably offered to the traveller, either in the state of fermented grain, or more commonly in a bamboo jug, filled quite up with warm water; when the fluid, sucked through a reed, affords a refreshing drink. He gratefully accepted a few rupees and trifles which we had to spare.

Leaving Simonbong, we descended to the Little Rungeet, where the heat of the valley was very great; 80° at noon, and that of the stream 69°; the latter was an agreeable temperature for the coolies, who plunged, teeming with perspiration, into the water, catching fish with their hands. We reached Dorjiling late in the evening, again drenched with rain; our people, Hindoo and Lepcha, imprudently remaining for the night in the valley. Owing probably as much to the great exposure they had lately gone through, as to the sudden transition from a mean temperature of 50° in a bracing wind, to a hot close jungly valley at 75°, no less than seven were laid up with fever and ague.

Few excursions can afford a better idea of the general features and rich luxuriance of the Sikkim Himalaya than that to Tonglo. It is always interesting to roam with an aboriginal, and especially a mountain people, through their thinly inhabited valleys, over their grand mountains, and to dwell alone with them in their gloomy and forbidding forests, and no thinking man can do so without learning much, however slender be the means at his command for communion. A more interesting and attractive companion than the Lepcha I never lived with: cheerful, kind, and patient with a master to whom he is attached; rude but not savage, ignorant and yet intelligent; with the simple resource of a plain knife he makes his house and furnishes yours, with a speed, alacrity, and ingenuity that wile away that well-known long hour when the weary pilgrim frets for his couch. In all my dealings with these people, they proved scrupulously honest. Except for drunkenness and carelessness, I never had to complain of any of the merry troop; some of whom, bareheaded and barelegged, possessing little or nothing save a cotton garment and a long knife, followed me for many months on subsequent occasions, from the scorching plains to the everlasting snows. Ever foremost in the forest or on the bleak mountain, and ever ready to help, to carry, to encamp, collect, or cook, they cheer on the traveller by their unostentatious zeal in his service, and are spurs to his progress.

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Chapter VIII

Difficulty in procuring leave to enter Sikkim—Obtain permission to travel in East Nepal—Arrangements—Coolies—Stores—Servants—Personal equipment—Mode of travelling—Leave Dorjiling—Goong ridge—Behaviour of Bhotan coolies—Nepal frontier—Myong valley—Ilam—Sikkim massacre—Cultivation—Nettles—Camp at Nanki on Tonglo—Bhotan coolies run away—View of Chumulari—Nepal peaks to west—Sakkiazung—Buceros—Road to Wallanchoon—Oaks—Scarcity of water—Singular view of mountain-valleys—Encampment—My tent and its furniture—Evening occupations—Dunkotah—Crossridge of Sakkiazung—Yews—Silver-firs—View of Tambur valley—Pemmi river—Pebbly terraces—Geology—Holy springs—Enormous trees—Luculia gratissima—Khawa river, rocks of—Arrive at Tambur—Shingle and gravel terraces—Natives, indolence of—Canoe ferry—Votive offerings—Bad road—Temperature, etc.—Chingtam village, view from—Mywa river and Guola—House—Boulders—Chain-bridge—Meepo, arrival of—Fevers.

Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of our relations with the Sikkim authorities, to which I have elsewhere alluded, my endeavours to procure leave to penetrate further beyond the Dorjiling territory than Tonglo, were attended with some trouble and delay.

In the autumn of 1848, the Governor-General communicated with the Rajah, desiring him to grant me honourable and safe escort through his dominions; but this was at once met by a decided refusal, apparently admitting of no compromise. Pending further negotiations, which Dr. Campbell felt sure would terminate satisfactorily, though perhaps too late for my purpose, he applied to the Nepal Rajah for permission for me to visit the Tibetan passes, west of Kinchinjunga; proposing in the meanwhile to arrange for my return through Sikkim. Through the kindness of Col. Thoresby, the Resident at that Court, and the influence of Jung Bahadoor, this request was promptly acceded to, and a guard of six Nepalese soldiers and two officers was sent to Dorjiling to conduct me to any part of the eastern districts of Nepal which I might select. I decided upon following up the Tambur, a branch of the Arun river, and exploring the two easternmost of the Nepalese passes into Tibet (Wallanchoon and Kanglachem), which would bring me as near to the central mass and loftiest part of the eastern flank of Kinchinjunga as possible.

For this expedition (which occupied three months), all the arrangements were undertaken for me by Dr. Campbell, who aforded me every facility which in his government position he could command, besides personally superintending the equipment and provisioning of my party. Taking horses or loaded animals of any kind was not expedient: the whole journey was to be performed on foot, and everything carried on men’s backs. As we were to march through wholly unexplored countries, where food was only procurable at uncertain intervals, it was necessary to engage a large body of porters, some of whom should carry bags of rice for the coolies and themselves too. The difficulty of selecting these carriers, of whom thirty were required, was very great. The Lepchas, the best and most tractable, and over whom Dr. Campbell had the most direct influence, disliked employment out of Sikkim, especially in so warlike a country as Nepal: and they were besides thought unfit for the snowy regions. The Nepalese, of whom there were many residing as British subjects in Dorjiling, were mostly run-aways from their own country, and afraid of being claimed, should they return to it, by the lords of the soil. To employ Limboos, Moormis, Hindoos, or other natives of low elevations, was out of the question; and no course appeared advisable but to engage some of the Bhotan run-aways domiciled in Dorjiling, who are accustomed to travel at all elevations, and fear nothing but a return to the country which they have abandoned as slaves, or as culprits: they are immensely powerful, and though intractable to the last degree, are generally glad to work and behave well for money. The choice, as will hereafter be seen, was unfortunate, though at the time unanimously approved.

My party mustered fifty-six persons. These consisted of myself, and one personal servant, a Portuguese half-caste, who undertook all offices, and spared me the usual train of Hindoo and Mahometan servants. My tent and equipments (for which I was greatly indebted to Mr. Hodgson), instruments, bed, box of clothes, books and papers, required a man for each. Seven more carried my papers for drying plants, and other scientific stores. The Nepalese guard had two coolies of their own. My interpreter, the coolie Sirdar (or headman), and my chief plant collector (a Lepcha), had a man each. Mr. Hodgson’s bird and animal shooter, collector, and stuffer, with their ammunition and indispensables, had four more; there were besides, three Lepcha lads to climb trees and change the plant-papers, who had long been in my service in that capacity; and the party was completed by fourteen Bhotan coolies laden with food, consisting chiefly of rice with ghee, oil, capsicums, salt, and flour.

I carried myself a small barometer, a large knife and digger for plants, note-book, telescope, compass, and other instruments; whilst two or three Lepcha lads who accompanied me as satellites, carried a botanising box, thermometers, sextant and artificial horizon, measuring-tape, azimuth compass and stand, geological hammer, bottles and boxes for insects, sketch-book, etc., arranged in compartments of strong canvass bags. The Nepal officer (of the rank of serjeant, I believe) always kept near me with one of his men, rendering innumerable little services. Other sepoys were distributed amongst the remainder of the party; one went ahead to prepare camping-ground, and one brought up the rear.

The course generally pursued by Himalayan travellers is to march early in the morning, and arrive at the camping-ground before or by noon, breakfasting before starting, or en route. I never followed this plan, because it sacrificed the mornings, which were otherwise profitably spent in collecting about camp; whereas, if I set off early, I was generally too tired with the day’s march to employ in any active pursuit the rest of the daylight, which in November only lasted till 6 p.m. The men breakfasted early in the morning, I somewhat later, and all had started by 10 a.m., arriving between 4 and 6 p.m. at the next camping-ground. My tent was formed of blankets, spread over cross pieces of wood and a ridge-pole, enclosing an area of 6 to 8 feet by 4 to 6 feet. The bedstead, table, and chair were always made by my Lepchas, as described in the Tonglo excursion. The evenings I employed in writing up notes and journals, plotting maps, and ticketing the plants collected during the day’s march.

I left Dorjiling at noon, on the 27th October, accompanied by Dr. Campbell, who saw me fairly off, the coolies having preceded me. Our direct route would have been over Tonglo, but the threats of the Sikkim authorities rendered it advisable to make for Nepal at once; we therefore kept west along the Goong ridge, a western prolongation of Sinchul.

On overtaking the coolies, I proceeded for six or seven miles along a zig-zag road, at about 7,500 feet elevation, through dense forests, and halted at a little hut within sight of Dorjiling. Rain and mist came on at nightfall, and though several parties of my servants arrived, none of the Bhotan coolies made their appearance, and I spent the night without food or bed, the weather being much too foggy and dark to send back to meet the missing men. They joined me late on the following day, complaining unreasonably of their loads, and without their Sirdar, who, after starting his crew, had returned to take leave of his wife and family. On the following day he appeared, and after due admonishment we started, but four miles further on were again obliged to halt for the Bhotan coolies, who were equally deaf to threats and entreaties. As they did not come up till dusk, we were obliged to encamp here, (alt. 7,400 feet) at the common source of the Balasun, which flows to the plains, and the Little Rungeet, whose course is north.

The contrast between the conduct of the Bhotan men and that of the Lepchas and Nepalese was so marked, that I seriously debated in my own mind the propriety of sending the former back to Dorjiling, but yielded to the remonstrances of their Sirdar and the Nepal guard, who represented the great difficulty we should have in replacing them, and above all, the loss of time, at this season a matter of great importance. We accordingly started again the following morning, and still keeping in a western direction, crossed the posts in the forest dividing Sikkim from Nepal, and descended into the Myong valley of the latter country, through which flows the river of that name, a tributary of the Tambur. The Myong valley is remarkably fine: it runs south-west from Tonglo, and its open character and general fertility contrast strongly with the bareness of the lower mountain spurs which flank it, and with the dense, gloomy, steep, and forest-clad gorges of Sikkim. At its lower end, about twenty miles from the frontier, is the military fort of Ilam, a celebrated stockaded post and cantonment of the Ghorkas: its position is marked by a conspicuous conical hill. The inhabitants are chiefly Brahmins, but there are also some Moormis, and a few Lepchas who escaped from Sikkim during the general massacre in 1825. Among these is a man who had formerly much influence in Sikkim; he still retains his title of Kazee,[66] and has had large lands assigned to him by the Nepalese Government: he sent the usual present of a kid, fowls, and eggs, and begged me to express to Dr. Campbell his desire to return to his native country, and settle at Dorjiling.

[66] This Mahometan title, by which the officers of state are known in Sikkim, is there generally pronounced Kajee.

The scenery of this valley is the most beautiful I know of in the lower Himalaya, and the Cheer Pine (P. longifolia) is abundant, cresting the hills; which are loosely clothed with clumps of oaks and other trees, bamboos, and bracken (Pteris). The slopes are covered with red clay, and separate little ravines luxuriantly clothed with tropical vegetation, amongst which flow pebbly streams of transparent cool water. The villages, which are merely scattered collections of huts, are surrounded with fields of rice, buckwheat, and Indian corn, which latter the natives were now storing in little granaries, mounted on four posts, men, women, and children being all equally busy. The quantity of gigantic nettles (Urtica heterophylla) on the skirts of these maize fields is quite wonderful: their long white stings look most formidable, but though they sting virulently, the pain only lasts half an hour or so. These, however, with leeches, mosquitos, peepsas, and ticks, sometimes keep the traveller in a constant state of irritation.

However civilised the Hindoo may be in comparison with the Lepcha, he presents a far less attractive picture to the casual observer; he comes to your camping-ground, sits down, and stares with all his might, but offers no assistance; if he bring a present at all, he expects a return on the spot, and goes on begging till satisfied. I was amused by the cool way in which my Ghorka guard treated the village lads, when they wanted help in my service, taking them by the shoulder, pulling out their knives for them, placing them in their bands, and setting them to cut down a tree, or to chop firewood, which they seldom refused to do, when a little such douce violence was applied.

My object being to reach the Tambur, north of the great east and west mountain ridge of Sakkiazung, without crossing the innumerable feeders of the Myong and their dividing spurs, we ascended the north flank of the valley to a long spur from Tonglo, intending to follow winding ridges of that mountain to the sources of the Pemmi at the Phulloot mountains, and thence descend.

On the 3rd November I encamped on the flank of Tonglo (called Nanki in Nepal), at 9,300 feet, about 700 feet below the western summit, which is rocky, and connected by a long flat ridge with that which I had visited in the previous May. The Bhotan coolies behaved worse than ever; their conduct being in all respects typical of the turbulent, mulish race to which they belong. They had been plundering my provisions as they went along, and neither their Sirdar nor the Ghorka soldiers had the smallest authority over them. I had hired some Ghorka coolies to assist and eventually to replace them, and had made up my mind to send back the worst from the more populous banks of the Tambur, when I was relieved by their making off of their own accord. The dilemma was however awkward, as it was impossible to procure men on the top of a mountain 10,000 feet high, or to proceed towards Phulloot. No course remained but to send to Dorjiling for others, or to return to the Myong valley, and take a more circuitous route over the west end of Sakkiazung, which led through villages from which I could procure coolies day by day. I preferred the latter plan, and sent one of the soldiers to the nearest village for assistance to bring the loads down, halting a day for that purpose.

From the summit of Tonglo I enjoyed the view I had so long desired of the Snowy Himalaya, from north-east to north-west; Sikkim being on the right, Nepal on the left, and the plains of India to the southward; and I procured a set of compass bearings, of the greatest use in mapping the country. In the early morning the transparency of the atmosphere renders this view one of astonishing grandeur. Kinchinjunga bore nearly due north, a dazzling mass of snowy peaks, intersected by blue glaciers, which gleamed in the slanting rays of the rising sun, like aquamarines set in frosted silver. From this the sweep of snowed mountains to the eastward was almost continuous as far as Chola (bearing east-north-east), following a curve of 150 miles, and enclosing the whole of the northern part of Sikkim, which appeared a billowy mass of forest-clad mountains. On the north-east horizon rose the Donkia mountain (23,176 feet), and Chumulari (23,929). Though both were much more distant than the snowy ranges, being respectively eighty and ninety miles off, they raised their gigantic heads above, seeming what they really were, by far the loftiest peaks next to Kinchinjunga; and the perspective of snow is so deceptive, that though 40 to 60 miles beyond, they appeared as though almost in the same line with the ridges they overtopped. Of these mountains, Chumulari presents many attractions to the geographer, from its long disputed position, its sacred character, and the interest attached to it since Turner’s mission to Tibet in 1783. It was seen and recognised by Dr. Campbell, and measured by Colonel Waugh, from Sinchul, and also from Tonglo, and was a conspicuous object in my subsequent journey to Tibet. Beyond Junnoo, one of the western peaks of Kinchinjunga, there was no continuous snowy chain; the Himalaya seemed suddenly to decline into black and rugged peaks, till in the far north-west it rose again in a white mountain mass of stupendous elevation at 80 miles distance, called, by my Nepal people, “Tsungau.”[67] From the bearings I took of it from several positions, it is in about lat. 27° 49′ and long. 86° 24′, and is probably on the west flank of the Arun valley and river, which latter, in its course from Tibet to the plains of India, receives the waters from the west flank of Kinchinjunga, and from the east flank of the mountain in question. It is perhaps one which has been seen and measured from the Tirhoot district by some of Colonel Waugh’s party, and which has been reported to be upwards of 28,000 feet in elevation; and it is the only mountain of the first class in magnitude between Gosainthan (north-east of Katmandoo) and Kinchinjunga.

[67] This is probably the easternmost and loftiest peak seen from Katmandoo, distant 78 miles, and estimated elevation 20,117 feet by Col. Crawford’s observations. See “Hamilton’s Nepal,” p. 346, and plate 1.

To the west, the black ridge of Sakkiazung, bristling with pines, (Abies Webbiana) cut off the view of Nepal; but south-west, the Myong valley could be traced to its junction with the Tambur about thirty miles off: beyond which to the south-west and south, low hills belonging to the outer ranges of Nepal rose on the distant horizon, seventy or eighty miles off; and of these the most conspicuous were the Mahavarati which skirt the Nepal Terai. South and south-east, Sinchul and the Goong range of Sikkim intercepted the view of the plains of India, of which I had a distant peep to the south-west only.

The west top of Tonglo is very open and grassy, with occasional masses of gneiss of enormous size, but probably not in situ. The whole of this flank, and for 1000 feet down the spur to the south-west, had been cleared by fire for pasturage, and flocks of black-faced sheep were grazing. During my stay on the mountain, except in the early morning, the weather was bleak, gloomy, and very cold, with a high south-west wind. The mean temperature was 41°, extremes 53·2/26°: the nights were very clear, with sharp hoar-frost; the radiating thermometer sank to 21°, the temperature at 3·5 feet depth was 51·5°.

A few of the Bhotan coolies having voluntarily returned, I left Tonglo on the 5th, and descended its west flank to the Mai, a feeder of the Myong. The descent was as abrupt as that on the east face, but through less dense forest; the Sikkim side (that facing the east) being much the dampest. I encamped at dark by a small village, (Jummanoo) at 4,360 feet, having descended 5000 feet in five hours. Hence we marched eastward to the village of Sakkiazung, which we reached on the third day, crossing en route several spurs 4000 to 6000 feet high, from the same ridge, and as many rivers, which all fall into the Myong, and whose beds are elevated from 2,500 to 3000 feet.

Though rich and fertile, the country is scantily populated, and coolies were procured with difficulty: I therefore sent back to Dorjiling all but absolute indispensables, and on the 9th of November started up the ridge in a northerly direction, taking the road from Ilam to Wallanchoon. The ascent was gradual, through a fine forest, full of horn-bills (Buceros), a bird resembling the Toucan (“Dhunass” Lepcha); at 7000 feet an oak (Quercus semecarpifolia), “Khasrou” of the Nepalese, commences, a tree which is common as far west as Kashmir, but which I never found in Sikkim, though it appears again in Bhotan.[68] No oak in Sikkim attains a greater elevation than 10,000.] It forms a broad-headed tree, and has a very handsome appearance; its favourite locality is on grassy open shoulders of the mountains. It was accompanied by an Astragalus, Geranium, and several other plants of the drier interior parts of Sikkim. Water is very scarce along the ridge; we walked fully eight miles without finding any, and were at length obliged to encamp at 8,350 feet by the only spring that we should be able to reach. With respect to drought, this ridge differs materially from Sikkim, where water abounds at all elevations; and the cause is obviously its position to the westward of the great ridge of Singalelah (including Tonglo) by which the S.W. currents are drained of their moisture. Here again, the east flank was much the dampest and most luxuriantly wooded.

[68] This oak ascends in the N.W. Himalaya to the highest limit of forest (12,000 feet).

While my men encamped on a very narrow ridge, I ascended a rocky summit, composed of great blocks of gneiss, from which I obtained a superb view to the westward. Immediately below a fearfully sudden descent, ran the Daomy River, bounded on the opposite side by another parallel ridge of Sakkiazung, enclosing, with that on which I stood, a gulf from 6000 to 7000 feet deep, of wooded ridges, which, as it were, radiated outwards as they ascended upwards in rocky spurs to the pine-clad peaks around. To the south-west, in the extreme distance, were the boundless plains of India, upwards of 100 miles off, with the Cosi meandering through them like a silver thread.

The firmament appeared of a pale steel blue, and a broad low arch spanned the horizon, bounded by a line of little fleecy clouds (moutons); below this the sky was of a golden yellow, while in successively deeper strata, many belts or ribbons of vapour appeared to press upon the plains, the lowest of which was of a dark leaden hue, the upper more purple, and vanishing into the pale yellow above. Though well defined, there was no abrupt division between the belts, and the lowest mingled imperceptibly with the hazy horizon. Gradually the golden lines grew dim, and the blues and purples gained depth of colour; till the sun set behind the dark-blue peaked mountains in a flood of crimson and purple, sending broad beams of grey shade and purple light up to the zenith, and all around. As evening advanced, a sudden chill succeeded, and mists rapidly formed immediately below me in little isolated clouds, which coalesced and spread out like a heaving and rolling sea, leaving nothing above their surface but the ridges and spurs of the adjacent mountains. These rose like capes, promontories, and islands, of the darkest leaden hue, bristling with pines, and advancing boldly into the snowy white ocean, or starting from its bed in the strongest relief. As darkness came on, and the stars arose, a light fog gathered round me, and I quitted with reluctance one of the most impressive and magic scenes I ever beheld.

Returning to my tent, I was interested in observing how well my followers had accommodated themselves to their narrow circumstances. Their fires gleamed everywhere amongst the trees, and the people, broken up into groups of five, presented an interesting picture of native, savage, and half-civilised life. I wandered amongst them in the darkness, and watched unseen their operations; some were cooking, with their rude bronzed faces lighted up by the ruddy glow, as they peered into the pot, stirring the boiling rice with one hand, while with the other they held back their long tangled hair. Others were bringing water from the spring below, some gathering sprigs of fragrant Artemisia and other shrubs to form couches—some lopping branches of larger trees to screen them from nocturnal radiation; their only protection from the dew being such branches stuck in the ground, and slanting over their procumbent forms. The Bhotanese were rude and boisterous in their pursuits, constantly complaining to the Sirdars, and wrangling over their meals. The Ghorkas were sprightly, combing their raven hair, telling interminably long stories, of which money was the burthen, or singing Hindoo songs through their noses in chorus; and being neater and better dressed, and having a servant to cook their food, they seemed quite the gentlemen of the party. Still the Lepcha was the most attractive, the least restrained, and the most natural in all his actions, the simplest in his wants and appliances, with a bamboo as his water-jug, an earthen-pot as his kettle, and all manner of herbs collected during the day’s march to flavour his food.

My tent was made of a blanket thrown over the limb of a tree; to this others were attached, and the whole was supported on a frame like a house. One half was occupied by my bedstead, beneath which was stowed my box of clothes, while my books and writing materials were placed under the table. The barometer hung in the most out-of-the-way corner, and my other instruments all around. A small candle was burning in a glass shade, to keep the draught and insects from the light, and I had the comfort of seeing the knife, fork, and spoon laid on a white napkin, as I entered my snug little house, and flung myself on the elastic couch to ruminate on the proceedings of the day, and speculate on those of the morrow, while waiting for my meal, which usually consisted of stewed meat and rice, with biscuits and tea. My thermometers (wet and dry bulb, and minimum) hung under a temporary canopy made of thickly plaited bamboo and leaves close to the tent, and the cooking was performed by my servant under a tree.

After dinner my occupations were to ticket and put away the plants collected during the day, write up journals, plot maps, and take observations till 10 p.m. As soon as I was in bed, one of the Nepal soldiers was accustomed to enter, spread his blanket on the ground, and sleep there as my guard. In the morning the collectors were set to change the plant-papers, while I explored the neighbourhood, and having taken observations and breakfasted, we were ready to start at 10 a.m.

Following the same ridge, after a few miles of ascent over much broken gneiss rock, the Ghorkas led me aside to the top of a knoll, 9,300 feet high, covered with stunted bushes, and commanding a splendid view to the west, of the broad, low, well cultivated valley of the Tambur, and the extensive town of Dunkotah on its banks, about twenty-five miles off; the capital of this part of Nepal, and famous for its manufactory of paper from the bark of the Daphne. Hence too I gained a fine view of the plains of India, including the course of the Cosi river, which, receiving the Arun and Tambur, debouches into the Ganges opposite Colgongl (see p. 95).

A little further on we crossed the main ridge of Sakkiazung, a long flexuous chain stretching for miles to the westward from Phulloot on Singalelah, and forming the most elevated and conspicuous transverse range in this part of Nepal: its streams flow south to the Myong, and north to feeders of the Tambur. Silver firs (Abies Webbiana) are found on all the summits; but to my regret none occurred in our path, which led just below their limit (10,000 feet), on the southern Himalayan ranges. There were, however, a few yews, exactly like the English. The view that opened on cresting this range was again magnificent, of Kinchinjunga, the western snows of Nepal, and the valley of the Tambur winding amongst wooded and cultivated hills to a long line of black-peaked, rugged mountains, sparingly snowed, which intervene between Kinchinjunga and the great Nepal mountain before mentioned. The extremely varied colouring on the infinite number of hill-slopes that everywhere intersected the Tambur valley was very pleasing. For fully forty miles to the northward there were no lofty forest-clad mountains, nor any apparently above 4000 to 5000 feet: villages and hamlets appeared everywhere, with crops of golden mustard and purple buckwheat in full flower; yellow rice and maize, green hemp, pulse, radishes, and barley, and brown millet. Here and there deep groves of oranges, the broad-leafed banana, and sugar-cane, skirted the bottoms of the valleys, through which the streams were occasionally seen, rushing in white foam over their rocky beds. It was a goodly sight to one who had for his only standard of comparison the view from Sinchul, of the gloomy forest-clad ranges of 6000 to 10,000 feet, that intervene between that mountain and the snowy girdle of Sikkim; though I question whether a traveller from more favoured climes would see more in this, than a thinly inhabited country, with irregular patches of poor cultivation, a vast amount of ragged forest on low hills of rather uniform height and contour, relieved by a dismal back-ground of frowning black mountains, sprinkled with snow! Kinchinjunga was again the most prominent object to the north-east, with its sister peaks of Kubra (24,005 feet), and Junnoo (25,312 feet). All these presented bare cliff’s for several thousand feet below their summits, composed of white rock with a faint pink tint:—on the other hand the lofty Nepal mountain in the far west presented cliffs of black rocks. From the summit two routes to the Tambur presented themselves; one, the main road, led west and south along the ridge, and then turned north, descending to the river; the other was shorter, leading abruptly down to the Pemmi river, and thence along its banks, west to the Tambur. I chose the latter.

The descent was very abrupt on the first day, from 9,500 feet to 5000 feet, and on that following to the bed of the Pemmi, at 2000 feet; and the road was infamously bad, generally consisting of a narrow, winding, rocky path among tangled shrubs and large boulders, brambles, nettles, and thorny bushes, often in the bed of the torrent, or crossing spurs covered with forest, round whose bases it flowed. A little cultivation was occasionally met with on the narrow flat pebbly terraces which fringed the stream, usually of rice, and sometimes of the small-leaved variety of hemp (Cannabis), grown as a narcotic.

The rocks above 5000 feet were gneiss; below this, cliffs of very micaceous schist were met with, having a north-west strike, and being often vertical; the boulders again were always of gneiss. The streams seemed rather to occupy faults, than to have eroded courses for themselves; their beds were invariably rocky or pebbly, and the waters white and muddy from the quantity of alumina. In one little rocky dell the water gushed through a hole in a soft stratum in the gneiss; a trifling circumstance which was not lost upon the crafty Brahmins, who had cut a series of regular holes for the water, ornamented the rocks with red paint, and a row of little iron tridents of Siva, and dedicated the whole to Mahadeo.

In some spots the vegetation was exceedingly fine, and several large trees occurred: I measured a Toon (Cedrela) thirty feet in girth at five feet above the ground. The skirts of the forest were adorned with numerous jungle flowers, rice crops, blue Acanthaceæ and Pavetta, wild cherry-trees covered with scarlet blossoms, and trees of the purple and lilac Bauhinia; while Thunbergia, Convolvulus, and other climbers, hung in graceful festoons from the boughs, and on the dry micaceous rocks the Luculia gratissima, one of our common hot-house ornaments, grew in profusion, its gorgeous heads of blossoms scenting the air.

At the junction of the Pemmi and Khawa rivers, there are high rocks of mica-slate, and broad river-terraces of stratified sand and pebbles, apparently alternating with deposits of shingle. On this hot, open expanse, elevated 2250 feet, appeared many trees and plants of the Terai and plains, as pomegranate, peepul, and sal; with extensive fields of cotton, indigo, and irrigated rice.

We followed the north bank of the Khawa, which runs westerly through a gorge, between high cliffs of chlorite, containing thick beds of stratified quartz. At the angles of the river broad terraces are formed, fifteen to thirty feet above its bed, similar to those just mentioned, and planted with rows of Acacia Serissa, or laid out in rice fields, or sugar plantations.

I reached the east bank of the Tambur, on the 13th of November, at its junction with the Khawa, in a deep gorge. It formed a grand stream, larger than the Teesta, of a pale, sea-green, muddy colour, and flowed rapidly with a strong ripple, but no foam; it rises six feet in the rains, but ice never descends nearly so low; its breadth was sixty to eighty yards, its temperature 55° to 58°. The breadth of the foaming Khawa was twelve to fifteen yards, and its temperature 56·5°. The surrounding vegetation was entirely tropical, consisting of scrubby sal trees, acacia, Grislea, Emblica, Hibiscus, etc.; the elevation being but 1,300 feet, though the spot was twenty-five miles in a straight line from the plains. I camped at the fork of the rivers, on a fine terrace fifty feet above the water, about seventy yards long, and one hundred broad, quite flat-topped, and composed of shingle, gravel, etc., with enormous boulders of gneiss, quartz, and hornstone, much water-worn; it was girt by another broken terrace, twelve feet or so above the water, and covered with long grass and bushes.

The main road from Ilam to Wallanchoon, which I quitted on Sakkiazung, descends steeply on the opposite bank of the river, which I crossed in a canoe formed of a hollow trunk (of Toon), thirty feet long. There is considerable traffic along this road; and I was visited by numbers of natives, all Hindoos, who coolly squatted before my tent-door, and stared with their large black, vacant, lustrous eyes: they appear singularly indolent, and great beggars.

The land seems highly favoured by nature, and the population, though so scattered, is in reality considerable, the varied elevation giving a large surface; but the natives care for no more than will satisfy their immediate wants. The river swarms with fish, but they are too lazy to catch them, and they have seldom anything better to give or sell

than sticks of sugar-cane, which when peeled form a refreshing morsel in these scorching marches. They have few and poor oranges, citrons, and lemons, very bad plantains, and but little else;—eggs, fowls, and milk are all scarce. Horned cattle are of course never killed by Hindoos, and it was but seldom that I could replenish my larder with a kid. Potatos are unknown, but my Sepoys often brought me large coarse radishes and legumes.

From the junction of the rivers the road led up the Tambur to Mywa Guola; about sixteen miles by the river, but fully thirty-five, as we wound, ascended, and descended, during three days’ marches. We were ferried across the stream in a canoe much ruder than that of the New Zealander. I watched my party crossing by boat-loads of fifteen each; the Bhotan men hung little scraps of rags on the bushes before embarking, the votive offerings of a Booddhist throughout central Asia;—the Lepcha, less civilised, scooped up a little water in the palm of his hand, and scattered it about, invoking the river god of his simple creed.

We always encamped upon gravelly terraces a few feet above the river, which flows in a deep gorge; its banks are very steep for 600 feet above the stream, though the mountains which flank it do not exceed 4000 to 5000 feet: this is a constant phenomenon in the Himalaya, and the roads, when low and within a few hundred feet of the river, are in consequence excessively steep and difficult; it would have been impossible to have taken ponies along that we followed, which was often not a foot broad, running along very steep cliffs, at a dizzy height above the river, and engineered with much trouble and ingenuity: often the bank was abandoned altogether, and we ascended several thousand feet to descend again. Owing to the steepness of these banks, and the reflected

heat, the valley, even at this season, was excessively hot and close during the day, even when the temperature was below 70°, and tempered by a brisk breeze which rushes upwards from sunrise to sunset. The sun at this season does not, in many places, reach the bottom of these valleys until 10 a.m., and is off again by 3 p.m.; and the radiation to a clear sky is so powerful that dew frequently forms in the shade, throughout the day, and it is common at 10 a.m. to find the thermometer sink from 70° in a sheltered spot, dried by the sun, to 40° in the shade close by, where the sun has not yet penetrated. Snow never falls.

The rocks throughout this part of the river-course are mica-schists (strike north-west, dip south-west 70°, but very variable in inclination and direction); they are dry and grassy, and the vegetation wholly tropical, as is the entomology, which consists chiefly of large butterflies, Mantis and Diptera. Snowy mountains are rarely seen, and the beauty of the scenery is confined to the wooded banks of the main stream, which flows at an average inclination of fifty feet to the mile. Otters are found in the stream, and my party shot two, but could not procure them.

In one place the road ascended for 2000 feet above the river, to the village of Chingtam, situated on a lofty spur of the west bank, whence I obtained a grand view of the upper course of the river, flowing in a tremendous chasm, flanked by well-cultivated hills, and emerging fifteen miles to the northward, from black mountains of savage grandeur, whose rugged, precipitous faces were streaked with snow, and the tops of the lower ones crowned with the tabular-branched silver-fir, contrasting strongly with the tropical luxuriance around. Chingtam is an extensive village, covering an area of two miles, and surrounded with abundant cultivation; the houses, which are built in clusters, are of wood, or wattle and mud, with grass thatch. The villagers, though an indolent, staring race, are quiet and respectable; the men are handsome, the women, though less so, often good-looking. They have fine cattle, and excellent crops.

Immediately above Chingtam, the Tambur is joined by a large affluent from the west, the Mywa, which is crossed by an excellent iron bridge, formed of loops hanging from two parallel chains, along which is laid a plank of sal timber. Passing through the village, we camped on a broad terrace, from sixty to seventy feet above the junction of the rivers, whose beds are 2100 feet above the sea.

Mywa Guola (or bazaar) is a large village and mart, frequented by Nepalese and Tibetans, who bring salt, wool, gold, musk, and blankets, to exchange for rice, coral, and other commodities; and a custom-house officer is stationed there, with a few soldiers. The houses are of wood, and well built: the public ones are large, with verandahs, and galleries of carved wood; the workmanship is of Chinese character, and inferior to that of Katmandoo; but in the same style, and quite unlike anything I had previously seen.

The river-terrace is in all respects similar to that at the junction of the Tambur and Khawa, but very extensive: the stones it contained were of all sizes, from a nut to huge boulders upwards of fifteen feet long, of which many strewed the surface, while others were in the bed of the river: all were of gneiss, quartz, and granite, and had doubtless been transported from great elevations, as the rocks in situ—both here and for several thousand feet higher up the river—were micaceous schists, dipping in various directions, and at all angles, with, however, a general strike to the north-west.

I was here overtaken by a messenger with letters from Dr. Campbell, announcing that the Sikkim Rajah had disavowed the refusal to the Governor-General’s letter, and authorising me to return through any part of Sikkim I thought proper. The bearer was a Lepcha attached to the court: his dress was that of a superior person, being a scarlet jacket over a white cotton dress, the breadth of the blue stripes of which generally denotes wealth; he was accompanied by a sort of attache, who wore a magnificent pearl and gold ear-ring, and carried his master’s bow, as well as a basket on his back; while an attendant coolie bore their utensils and food. Meepo, or Teshoo (in Tibetan, Mr.), Meepo, as he was usually called, soon attached himself to me, and proved an active, useful, and intelligent companion, guide, and often collector, during many months afterwards.

The vegetation round Mywa Guola is still thoroughly tropical: the banyan is planted, and thrives tolerably, the heat being great during the day. Like the whole of the Tambur valley below 4000 feet, and especially on these flats, the climate is very malarious before and after the rains; and I was repeatedly applied to by natives suffering under attacks of fever. During the two days I halted, the mean temperature was 60° (extremes, 80°/41°), that of the Tambur, 53°, and of the Mywa, 56°; each varying a few° (the smaller stream the most) between sunrise and 4 p.m.: the sunk thermometer was 72°.

As we should not easily be able to procure food further on, I laid in a full stock here, and distributed blankets, etc., sufficient for temporary use for all the people, dividing them into groups or messes.

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Chapter IX

Leave Mywa—Suspension bridge—Landslips—Vegetation—Slope of riverbed—Bees’ nests—Glacial phenomena—Tibetans, clothing, ornaments, amulets, salutation, children, dogs—Last Limboo village, Taptiatok—Beautiful scenery—Tibet village of Lelyp—Opuntia—Edgeworthia—Crab-apple—Chameleon and porcupine—Praying machine—Abies Brunoniana—European plants—Grand scenery—Arrive at Wallanchoon—Scenery around—Trees—Tibet houses—Manis and Mendongs—Tibet household—Food—Tea-soup—Hospitality—Yaks and Zobo, uses and habits of—Bhoteeas—Yak-hair tents—Guobah of Walloong—Jhatamansi—Obstacles to proceeding—Climate and weather—Proceed—Rhododendrons, etc.—Lichens—Poa annua and Shepherd’s purse—Tibet camp—Tuquoroma—Scenery of pass—Glaciers and snow—Summit—Plants, woolly, etc.

On the 18th November, we left Mywa Guola, and continued up the river to the village of Wallanchoon or Walloong, which was reached in six marches. The snowy peak of Junnoo (alt. 25,312 feet.) forms a magnificent feature from this point, seen up the narrow gorge of the river, bearing N.N.E. about thirty miles. I crossed the Mewa, an affluent from the north, by another excellent suspension bridge. In these bridges, the principal chains are clamped to rocks on either shore, and the suspended loops occur at intervals of eight to ten feet; the single sal-plank laid on these loops swings terrifically, and the handrails not being four feet high, the sense of insecurity is very great.

The Wallanchoon road follows the west bank, but the bridge above having been carried away, we crossed by a plank, and proceeded along very steep banks of decomposed chlorite schist, much contorted, and very soapy, affording an insecure footing, especially where great landslips had occurred, which were numerous, exposing acres of a reddish and white soil of felspathic clay, sloping at an angle of 30°. Where the angle was less than 15°, rice was cultivated, and partially irrigated. The lateral streams (of a muddy opal green) had cut beds 200 feet deep in the soft earth, and were very troublesome to cross, from the crumbling cliffs on either side, and their broad swampy channels.

Five or six miles above Mywa, the valley contracts much, and the Tambur (whose bed is elevated about 3000 feet) becomes a turbulent river, shooting along its course with immense velocity, torn into foam as it lashes the spurs of rock that flank it, and the enormous boulders with which its bed is strewn.[69] From this elevation to 9000 feet, its sinuous track extends about thirty miles, which gives the mean fall of 200 feet to the mile, quadruple of what it is for the lower part of its course. So long as its bed is below 5000 feet, a tropical vegetation prevails in the gorge, and along the terraces, consisting of tall bamboo, Bauhinia, Acacia, Melastoma, etc.; but the steep mountain sides above are either bare and grassy, or cliffs with scattered shrubs and trees, and their summits are of splintered slaty gneiss, bristling with pines: those faces exposed to the south and east are invariably the driest and most grassy; while the opposite are well wooded. Rhododendron arboreum becomes plentiful at 5000 to 6000 feet, forming a large tree on dry clayey slopes; it is accompanied by Indigofera, Andromeda, Spiræa, shrubby Compositæ, and very many plants absent at similar elevations on the wet outer Dorjiling ranges.

[69] In some places torrents of stone were carried down by landslips, obstructing the rivers; when in the beds of streams, they were often cemented by felspathic clay into a hard breccia of angular quartz, gneiss, and felspar nodules.

In the contracted parts of the valley, the mountains often dip to the river-bed, in precipices of gneiss, under the ledges of which wild bees build pendulous nests, looking like huge bats suspended by their wings; they are two or three feet long, and as broad at the top, whence they taper downwards: the honey is much sought for, except in spring, when it is said to be poisoned by Rhododendron flowers, just as that, eaten by the soldiers in the retreat of the Ten Thousand, was by the flowers of the R. ponticum.

Above these gorges are enormous accumulations of rocks, especially at the confluence of lateral valleys, where they rest upon little flats, like the river-terraces of Mywa, but wholly formed of angular shingle, flanked with beds of river-formed gravel: some of these boulders were thirty or forty yards across, and split as if they had fallen from a height; the path passing between the fragments.[70] At first I imagined that they had been precipitated from the mountains around; and I referred the shingle to land-shoots, which during the rains descend several thousand feet in devastating avalanches, damming up the rivers, and destroying houses, cattle, and cultivation; but though I still refer the materials of many such terraces to this cause, I consider those at the mouths of valleys to be due to ancient glacial action, especially when laden with such enormous blocks as are probably ice-transported.

[70] The split fragments I was wholly unable to account for, till my attention was directed by Mr. Darwin to the observations of Charpentier and Agassiz, who refer similar ones met with in the Alps, to rocks which have fallen through crevasses in glaciers.—See “Darwin on Glaciers and Transported Boulders in North Wales.” London, “Phil. Mag.” xxi. p. 180.

A change in the population accompanies that in the natural features of the country, Tibetans replacing the Limboos and Khass-tribes of Nepal, who inhabit the lower region. We daily passed parties of ten or a dozen Tibetans, on their way to Mywa Guola, laden with salt; several families of these wild, black, and uncouth-looking people generally travelling together. The men are middle-sized, often tall, very square-built and muscular; they have no beard, moustache, or whiskers, the few hairs on their faces being carefully removed with tweezers. They are dressed in loose blanket robes, girt about the waist with a leather belt, in which they place their iron or brass pipes, and from which they suspend their long knives, chopsticks, tobacco-pouch, tweezers, tinder-box, etc. The robe, boots, and cap are grey, or striped with bright colours, and they wear skull-caps, and the hair plaited into a pig-tail.

The women are dressed in long flannel petticoats and spencer, over which is thrown a sleeveless, short, striped cloak, drawn round the waist by a girdle of broad brass or silver links, to which hang their knives, scissors, needlecases, etc., and with which they often strap their children to their backs; the hair is plaited in two tails, and the neck loaded with strings of coral and glass beads, and great lumps of amber, glass, and agate. Both sexes wear silver rings and ear-rings, set with turquoises, and square amulets upon their necks and arms, which are boxes of gold or silver, containing small idols, or the nail-parings, teeth, or other reliques of some sainted Lama, accompanied with musk, written prayers, and other charms. All are good-humoured and amiable-looking people, very square and Mongolian in countenance, with broad mouths, high cheek-bones, narrow, upturned eyes, broad, flat noses, and low foreheads. White is their natural colour, and rosy cheeks are common amongst the younger women and children, but all are begrimed with filth and smoke; added to which, they become so weather-worn from exposure to the most rigorous climate in the world, that their natural hues are rarely to be recognised. Their customary mode of saluting one another is to hold out the tongue, grin, nod, and scratch their ear; but this method entails so much ridicule in the low countries, that they do not practise it to Nepalese or strangers; most of them when meeting me, on the contrary, raised their hands to their eyes, threw themselves on the ground, and kotowed most decorously, bumping their foreheads three times on the ground; even the women did this on several occasions. On rising, they begged for a bucksheesh, which I gave in tobacco or snuff, of which they are immoderately fond. Both men and women constantly spin wool as they travel.

These motley groups of Tibetans are singularly picturesque, from the variety in their parti-coloured dresses, and their odd appearance. First comes a middle-aged man or woman, driving a little silky black yak, grunting under his load of 260 lb. of salt, besides pots, pans, and kettles, stools, churn, and bamboo vessels, keeping up a constant rattle, and perhaps, buried amongst all, a rosy-cheeked and lipped baby, sucking a lump of cheese-curd. The main body follow in due order, and you are soon entangled amidst sheep and goats, each with its two little bags of salt: beside these, stalks the huge, grave, bull-headed mastiff, loaded like the rest, his glorious bushy tail thrown over his back in a majestic sweep, and a thick collar of scarlet wool round his neck and shoulders, setting off his long silky coat to the best advantage; he is decidedly the noblest-looking of the party, especially if a fine and pure black one, for they are often very ragged, dun-coloured, sorry beasts. He seems rather out of place, neither guarding nor keeping the party together, but he knows that neither yaks, sheep, nor goats, require his attention; all are perfectly tame, so he takes his share of work as salt-carrier by day, and watches by night as well. The children bring up the rear, laughing and chatting together; they, too, have their loads, even to the youngest that can walk alone.

The last village of the Limboos, Taptiatok, is large, and occupies a remarkable amphitheatre, apparently a lake-bed, in the course of the Tambur. After proceeding some way through a narrow gorge, along which the river foamed and roared, the sudden opening out of this broad, oval expanse, more than a mile long, was very striking: the mountains rose bare and steep, the west flank terminating in shivered masses of rock, while that on the right was more undulating, dry, and grassy: the surface was a flat gravel-bed, through which meandered the rippling stream, fringed with alder. It was a beautiful spot, the clear, cool, murmuring river, with its rapids and shallows, forcibly reminding me of trout-streams in the highlands of Scotland.

Beyond Taptiatok we again crossed the river, and ascended over dry, grassy, or rocky spurs to Lelyp, the first Bhoteea village; it stands on a hill fully 1000 feet above the river, and commands a splendid view up the Yalloong and Kambachen valleys, which open immediately to the east, and appear as stupendous chasms in the mountains leading to the perpetual snows of Kinchin-junga. There were about fifty houses in the village, of wood and thatch, neatly fenced in with wattle, the ground between being carefully cultivated with radishes, buckwheat, wheat, and millet. I was surprised to find in one enclosure a fine healthy plant of Opuntia, in flower, at this latitude and elevation. A Lama, who is the head man of the place, came out to greet us, with his family and a whole troop of villagers; they were the same class of people as I have elsewhere described as Cis-nivean Tibetans, or Bhoteeas; none had ever before seen an Englishman, and I fear they formed no flattering opinion from the specimen now presented to them, as they seemed infinitely amused at my appearance, and one jolly dame clapped her hands to her sides, and laughed at my spectacles, till the hills echoed.

Elæagnus was common here, with Edgeworthia Gardneri,[71] a beautiful shrub, with globes of waxy, cowslip-coloured, deliciously scented flowers; also a wild apple, which bears a small austere fruit, like the Siberian crab. In the bed of the river rice was still cultivated by Limboos, and subtropical plants continued. I saw, too, a chameleon and a porcupine, indicating much warmth, and seeming quite foreign to the heart of these stupendous mountains. From 6000 to 7000 feet, plants of the temperate regions blend with the tropical; such as rhododendron, oak, ivy, geranium, berberry, clematis, and shrubby Vaccinia, which all made their appearance at Loongtoong, another Bhoteea village. Here, too, I first saw a praying machine, turned by water; it was enclosed in a little wooden house, and consisted of an upright cylinder containing a prayer, and with the words, “Om mani padmi om,” (Hail to him of the Lotus and Jewel) painted on the circumference: it was placed over a stream, and made to rotate on its axis by a spindle which passed through the floor of the building into the water, and was terminated by a wheel.

[71] A plant allied to Daphne, from whose bark the Nepal paper is manufactured. It was named after the eminent Indian botanist, brother of the late Miss Edgeworth.

Above this the road followed the west bank of the river; the latter was a furious torrent, flowing through a gorge, fringed with a sombre vegetation, damp, and dripping with moisture, and covered with long Usnea and pendulous mosses. The road was very rocky and difficult, sometimes leading along bluff faces of cliffs by wooden steps and single rotten planks. At 8000 feet I met with pines, whose trunks I had seen strewing the river for some miles lower down: the first that occurred was Abies Brunoniana, a beautiful species, which forms a stately blunt pyramid, with branches spreading like the cedar, but not so stiff, and drooping gracefully on all sides. It is unknown on the outer ranges of Sikkim, and in the interior occupies a belt about 1000 feet lower than the silver fir (A. Webbiana). Many sub-alpine plants occur here, as Lecesteria, Thalictrum, rose, thistles, alder, birch, ferns, bcrberry, holly, anemone, strawberry, raspberry, Gnaphalium, the alpine bamboo, and oaks. The scenery is as grand as any pictured by Salvator Rosa; a river roaring in sheets of foam, sombre woods, crags of gneiss, and tier upon tier of lofty mountains flanked and crested with groves of black firs, terminating in snow-sprinkled rocky peaks.

I now found the temperature getting rapidly cooler, both that of the air, which here at 8,066 feet fell to 32° in the night, and that of the river, which was always below 40°. It was in these narrow valleys only, that I observed the return cold current rushing down the river-courses during the nights, which were usually brilliant and very cold, with copious dew: so powerful, indeed, was the radiation, that the upper blanket of my bed became coated with moisture, from the rapid abstraction of heat by the frozen tarpaulin of my tent.

The rivers here are often fringed by flats of shingle, on which grow magnificent yews and pines; some of the latter were from 120 to 150 feet high, and had been blown down, owing to their scanty hold on the soil. I measured one, Abies Brunoniana, twenty feet in girth. Many alpine rhododendrons occur at 9000 feet, with Astragalis and creeping Tamarisk. Three miles below Wallanchoon the river forks, being met by the Yangma from the north-east; they are impetuous torrents of about equal volume; the Tambur especially (here called the Walloong) is often broken into cascades, and cuts a deep gorge-like channel.

I arrived at the village of Wallanchoon on the 23rd of November. It is elevated 10,385 feet, and situated in a fine open part of the Tambur valley, differing from any part lower down in all its natural features; being broad, with a rapid but not turbulent stream, very grassy, and both the base and sides of the flanking mountains covered with luxuriant dense bushes of rhododendron, rose, berberry and juniper. Red-legged crows, hawks, wild pigeons, and finches, abounded. There was but little snow on the mountains around, which are bare and craggy above, but sloping below. Bleak and forbidding as the situation of any Himalayan village at 10,000 feet elevation must be, that of Wallanchoon is rendered the more so from the comparatively few trees; for though the silver fir and juniper are both abundant higher up the valley, they have been felled here for building materials, fuel, and export to Tibet. From the naked limbs and tall gaunt black trunks of those that remain, stringy masses of bleached lichen (Usnea) many feet long, stream in the wind. Both men and women seemed fond of decorating their hair with wreaths of this lichen, which they dye yellow with leaves of Symplocos.

The village is very large, and occupies a flat on the east bank of the river, covered with huge boulders: the ascent to it is extremely steep, probably over an ancient moraine, though I did not recognise it as such at the time. Cresting this, the valley at once opens, and I was almost startled with the sudden change from a gloomy gorge to a broad flat and a populous village of large and good painted wooden houses, ornamented with hundreds of long poles and vertical flags, looking like the fleet of some foreign port; while a swarm of good-natured, intolerably dirty Tibetans, were kotowing to me as I advanced.

The houses crept up the base of the mountain, on the flank of which was a very large, long convent; two-storied, and painted scarlet, with a low black roof, and backed by a grove of dark junipers; while the hill-sides around were thickly studded with bushes of deep green rhododendron, scarlet berberry, and withered yellow rose. The village contained about one hundred houses, irregularly crowded together, from twenty to forty feet high, and forty to eighty feet long; each accommodating several families. All were built of upright strong pine-planks, the interstices of which were filled with yak-dung; and they sometimes rest on a low foundation wall: the door was generally at the gable end; it opened with a latch and string; and turned on a wooden pivot; the only window was a slit closed by a shutter; and the roofs were very low-pitched, covered with shingles kept down by stones. The paths were narrow and filthy; and the only public buildings besides the convents were Manis and Mendongs; of these the former are square-roofed temples, containing rows of praying-cylinders placed close together, from four to six feet high, and gaudily painted; some are turned by hand, and others by water: the latter are walls ornamented with slabs of clay and mica slate, with “Om Mani Padmi om” well carved on them in two characters, and repeated ad infinitum.

A Tibetan household is very slovenly; the family live higgledy-piggledy in two or more apartments, the largest of which has an open fire on the earth, or on a stone if the floor be of wood. The pots and tea-pot are earthen and copper; and these, with the bamboo churn for the brick tea, some wooden and metal spoons, bowls, and platters, comprise all the kitchen utensils.

Every one carries in the breast of his robe a little wooden cup for daily use; neatly turned from the knotted roots of maple (see p. 133). The Tibetan chiefly consumes barley, wheat, or buckwheat meal—the latter is confined to the poorer classes—with milk, butter, curd, and parched wheat; fowls, eggs, pork, and yak flesh when he can afford it, and radishes, a few potatos, legumes, and turnips in their short season. His drink is a sort of soup made from brick tea, of which a handful of leaves is churned up with salt, butter, and soda, then boiled and transferred to the tea-pot, whence it is poured scalding hot into each cup, which the good woman of the house keeps incessantly replenishing, and urging you to drain. Sometimes, but more rarely, the Tibetans make a drink by pouring boiling water over malt, as the Lepchas do over millet. A pipe of yellow mild Chinese tobacco generally follows the meal; more often, however, their tobacco is brought from the plains of India, when it is of a very inferior description. The pipe carried in the girdle, is of brass or iron, often with an agate, amber, or bamboo mouth-piece.

Many herds of fine yaks were grazing about Wallanchoon: there were a few ponies, sheep, goats, fowls, and pigs, but very little cultivation except turnips, radishes, and potatos. The yak is a very tame, domestic animal, often handsome, and a true bison in appearance; it is invaluable to these mountaineers from its strength and hardiness, accomplishing, at a slow pace, twenty miles a day, bearing either two bags of salt or rice, or four to six planks of pinewood slung in pairs along either flank. Their ears are generally pierced, and ornamented with a tuft of scarlet worsted; they have large and beautiful eyes, spreading horns, long silky black hair, and grand bushy tails: black is their prevailing colour, but red, dun, parti-coloured, and white are common. In winter, the flocks graze below 8000 feet, on account of the great quantity of snow above that height; in summer they find pasturage as high as 17,000 feet, consisting of grass and small tufted Carices, on which they browse with avidity.

The zobo, or cross between the yak and hill cow (much resembling the English cow), is but rarely seen in these mountains, though common in the North West Himalaya. The yak is used as a beast of burden; and much of the wealth of the people consists in its rich milk and curd, eaten either fresh or dried, or powdered into a kind of meal. The hair is spun into ropes, and woven into a covering for their tents, which is quite pervious to wind and rain;[72] from the same material are made the gauze shades for the eyes used in crossing snowy passes. The bushy tail forms the well-known “chowry” or fly-flapper of the plains of India; the bones and dung serve for fuel. The female drops one calf in April; and the young yaks are very full of gambols, tearing up and down the steep grassy and rocky slopes: their flesh is delicious, much richer and more juicy than common veal; that of the old yak is sliced and dried in the sun, forming jerked meat, which is eaten raw, the scanty proportion of fat preventing its becoming very rancid, so that I found it palatable food: it is called schat-tcheu (dried meat). I never observed the yak to be annoyed by any insects; indeed at the elevation it inhabits, there are no large diptera, bots, or gadflies to infest it. It loves steep places, delighting to scramble among rocks, and to sun its black hide perched on the glacial boulders which strew the Wallanchoon flat, and on which these beasts always sleep. Their average value is from two to three pounds, but the price varies with the season. In autumn, when her calf is killed for food, the mother will yield no milk, unless the herdsman gives it the calf’s foot to lick, or lays a stuffed skin before it, to fondle, which it does with eagerness, expressing its satisfaction by short grunts, exactly like those of a pig, a sound which replaces the low uttered by ordinary cattle. The yak, though indifferent to ice and snow and to changes of temperature, cannot endure hunger so long as the sheep, nor pick its way so well upon stony ground. Neither can it bear damp heat, for which reason it will not live in summer below 7000 feet, where liver disease carries it off after a very few years.[73] Lastly, the yak is ridden, especially by the fat Lamas, who find its shaggy coat warm, and its paces easy; under these circumstances it is always led. The wild yak or bison (D’hong) of central Asia, the superb progenitor of this animal, is the largest native animal of Tibet, in various parts of which country it is found; and the Tibetans say, in reference to its size, that the liver is a load for a tame yak. The Sikkim Dewan gave Dr. Campbell and myself an animated account of the chase of this animal, which is hunted by large dogs, and shot with a blunderbuss: it is untameable and horridly fierce, falling upon you with horns and chest, and if he rasps you with his tongue, it is so rough as to scrape the flesh from the bones. The horn is used as a drinking-cup in marriage feasts, and on other grand occasions. My readers are probably familiar with Messrs. Huc and Gabet’s account of a herd of these animals being frozen fast in the head-waters of the Yangtsekiang river. There is a noble specimen in the British Museum not yet set up, and another is preparing for exhibition in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.

[72] The latter is, however, of little consequence in the dry climate of Tibet.

[73] Nevertheless, the yak seems to have survived the voyage to England. I find in Turner’s “Tibet” (p. 189), that a bull sent by that traveller to Mr. Hastings, reached England alive, and after suffering from languor, so far recovered its health and vigour as to become the father of many calves. Turner does not state by what mother these calves were born, an important omission, as he adds that all these died but one cow, which bore a calf by an Indian bull. A painting of the yak (copied into Turner’s book) by Stubbs, the animal painter, may be seen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. The artist is probably a little indebted to description for the appearance of its hair in a native state, for it is represented much too even in length, and reaching to too uniform a depth from the flanks.

The inhabitants of these frontier districts belong to two very different tribes, but all are alike called Bhoteeas (from Bhote, the proper name of Tibet), and have for many centuries been located in what is—in climate and natural features—a neutral ground between dry Tibet Proper, and the wet Himalayan gorges. They inhabit a climate too cold for either the Lepcha or Nepalese, migrating between 6000 and 15,000 feet with the seasons, always accompanied by their herds. In all respects of appearance, religion, manners, customs, and language, they are Tibetans and Lama Booddhists, but they pay tax to the Nepal and Sikkim Rajahs, to whom they render immense service by keeping up and facilitating the trade in salt, wool, musk, etc., which could hardly be conducted without their co-operation. They levy a small tax on all imports, and trade a little on their own account, but are generally poor and very indolent. In their alpine summer quarters they grow scanty crops of wheat, barley, turnips, and radishes; and at their winter quarters, as at Loongtoong, the better classes cultivate fine crops of buck-wheat, millet, spinach, etc.; though seldom enough for their support, as in spring they are obliged to buy rice from the inhabitants of the lower regions. Equally dependent on Nepal and Tibet, they very naturally hold themselves independent of both; and I found that my roving commission from the Nepal Rajah was not respected, and the guard of Ghorkas held very cheap.

On my arrival at Wallanchoon, I was conducted to two tents, each about eight feet long, of yak’s hair, striped blue and white, which had been pitched close to the village for my accommodation. Though the best that could be provided, and larger than my own, they were wretched in the extreme, being of so loose a texture that the wind blew through them: each was formed of two cloths with a long slit between them, that ran across the top, giving egress to the smoke, and ingress to the weather: they were supported on two short poles, kept to the ground by large stones, and fastened by yak’s hair ropes. A fire was smoking vigorously in the centre of one, and some planks were laid at the end for my bed. A crowd of people soon came to stare and loll out their tongues at me, my party, and travelling equipage; though very civil, and only offensive in smell, they were troublesome, from their eager curiosity to see and handle everything; so that I had to place a circle of stones round the tents, whilst a soldier stood by, on the alert to keep them off. A more idle people are not to be found, except with regard to spinning, which is their constant occupation, every man and woman carrying a bundle of wool in the breast of their garments, which is spun by hand with a spindle, and wound off on two cross-pieces at its lower end. Spinning, smoking, and tea-drinking are their chief pursuits; and the women take all the active duties of the dairy and house. They live very happily together, fighting being almost unknown.

Soon after my arrival I was waited on by the Guobah (or head-man), a tall, good-looking person, dressed in a purple woollen robe, with good pearl and coral ear and finger-rings, and a broad ivory ring over the left thumb,[74] as a guard when using the bow; he wore a neat thick white felt cap, with the border turned up, and a silk tassel on the top; this he removed with both hands and held before him, bowing three times on entering. He was followed by a crowd, some of whom were his own people, and brought a present of a kid, fowls, rice, and eggs, and some spikenard roots (Nardostachys Jatamansi, a species of valerian smelling strongly of patchouli), which is a very favourite perfume. After paying some compliments, he showed me round the village. During my walk, I found that I had a good many objections to overrule before I could proceed to the Wallanchoon pass, nearly two days’ journey to the northward. In the first place, the Guobah disputed the Nepal rajah’s authority to pass me through his dominions; and besides the natural jealousy of these people when intruded upon, they have very good reasons for concealing the amount of revenue they raise from their position, and for keeping up the delusion that they alone can endure the excessive climate of these regions, or undergo the hardships and toil of the salt trade. My passport said nothing about the passes; my people, and especially the Ghorkas, detested the keen, cold, and cutting wind; at Mywa Guola, I had been persuaded by the Havildar to put off providing snow-boots and blankets, on the assurance that I should easily get them at Walloong, which I now found all but impossible, owing to there being no bazaar. My provisions were running short, and for the same reason I had no present hope of replenishing them. All my party had, I found, reckoned with certainty that I should have had enough of this elevation and weather by the time I reached Walloong. Some of them fell sick; the Guobah swore that the passes were full of snow, and had been impracticable since October; and the Ghorka Havildar respectfully deposed that he had no orders relative to the pass. Prompt measures were requisite, so I told all my people that I should stop the next day at Walloong, and proceed on the following on a three days’ journey to the pass, with or without the Guobah’s permission. To the Ghorka soldiers I said that the present they would receive, and the character they would take to their commandant, depended on their carrying out this point, which had been fully explained before starting. My servants I told that their pay and reward also depended on their implicit obedience. I took the Guobah aside and showed him troops of yaks (tethered by halters and toggles to a long rope stretched between two rocks), which had that morning arrived laden with salt from the north; I told him it was vain to try and deceive me; that my passport was ample, and that I should expect a guide, provisions, and snow-boots the next day; and that every impediment and every facility should be reported to the rajah.

[74] A broad ring of this material, agate, or chalcedony, is a mark of rank here, as amongst the Man-choos, and throughout Central Asia.

During my two days’ stay at Walloong, the weather was bitterly cold: as heretofore, the nights and mornings were cloudless, but by noon the whole sky became murky, the highest temperature (50°) occurring at 10 a.m. At this season the prospect from this elevation (10,385 feet), was dreary in the extreme; and the quantity of snow on the mountains, which was continually increasing, held out a dismal promise for my chance of exploring lofty uninhabited regions. All annual and deciduous vegetation had long past, and the lofty Himalayas are very poor in mosses and lichens, as compared with the European Alps, and arctic regions in general. The temperature fluctuated from 22° at sunrise, to 50° at 10 a.m.; the mean being 35°;[75] one night it fell to 64°. Throughout the day, a south wind blew strong and cold up the valley, and at sunset was replaced by a keen north blast, searching every corner, and piercing through tent and blankets. Though the sun’s rays were hot for an hour or two in the morning, its genial influence was never felt in the wind. The air was never very dry, the wet-bulb thermometer standing during the day 3·75° below the dry, thus giving a mean dew-point of 30·25°. A thermometer sunk two feet stood at 44°, fully 9° above the mean temperature of the air; one exposed to the clear sky, stood, during the day, several degrees below the air in shade, and, at night, from 9° to 14·75° lower. The black-bulb thermometer, in the sun, rose to 65·75° above the air, indicating upwards of 90° difference at nearly the warmest part of the day, between contiguous shaded and sunny exposures. The sky, when cloudless, was generally a cold blue or steel-grey colour, but at night the stars were large, and twinkled gloriously. The black-glass photometer indicated 10·521 inches[76] as the maximum intensity of sunlight; the temperature of the river close by fell to 32° during the night, and rose to 37° in the day. In my tent, the temperature fluctuated with the state of the fire, from 26° at night to 58° when the sun beat on it; but the only choice was between cold and suffocating smoke.

[75] This gives 1° Fahr. for every 309 feet of elevation, using contemporaneous observations at Calcutta, and correcting for latitude, etc.

[76] On three mornings the maxima occurred at between 9 and 10 a.m. They were, Nov. 24th, 10·509, Nov. 25th, 10·521. On the 25th, at Tuquoroma, I recorded 10·510. The maximum effect observed at Dorjiling (7,340 feet) was 10·328, and on the plains of India 10·350. The maximum I ever recorded was in Yangma valley (15,186 feet), 10·572 at 1 p.m.

After a good many conferences with the Guobah, some bullying, douce violence, persuasions, and the prescribing of pills, prayers, and charms in the shape of warm water, for the sick of the village, whereby I gained some favour, I was, on the 25th Nov., grudgingly prepared for the trip to Wallanchoon, with a guide, and some snow-boots for those of my party whom I took with me.

The path lay north-west up the valley, which became thickly wooded with silver-fir and juniper; we gradually ascended, crossing many streams from lateral gulleys, and huge masses of boulders. Evergreen rhododendrons soon replaced the firs, growing in inconceivable profusion, especially on the slopes facing the south: east, and with no other shrubs or tree-vegetation, but scattered bushes of rose, Spiræa, dwarf juniper, stunted birch, willow, honey-suckle, berberry, and a mountain-ash (Pyrus). What surprised me more than the prevalence of rhododendron bushes, was the number of species of this genus, easily recognised by the shape of their capsules, the form and woolly covering of the leaves; none were in flower, but I reaped a rich harvest of seed. At 12,000 feet the valley was wild, open, and broad, with sloping mountains clothed for 1000 feet with dark-green rhododendron bushes; the river ran rapidly, and was broken into falls here and there. Huge angular and detached masses of rock were scattered about, and to the right and left snowy peaks towered over the surrounding mountains, while amongst the latter narrow gulleys led up to blue patches of glacial ice, with trickling streams and shoots of stones. Dwarf rhododendrons with strongly-scented leaves (R. anthopogon and setosum), and abundance of a little Andromeda, exactly like ling, with woody stems and tufted branches, gave a heathery appearance to the hill-sides. The prevalence of lichens, common to this country and to Scotland (especially L. geographicus), which coloured the rocks, added an additional feature to the resemblance to Scotch Highland scenery. Along the narrow path I found the two commonest of all British weeds, a grass (Poa annua), and the shepherd’s purse! They had evidently been imported by man and yaks, and as they do not occur in India, I could not but regard these little wanderers from the north with the deepest interest.

Such incidents as these give rise to trains of reflection in the mind of the naturalist traveller; and the farther he may be from home and friends, the more wild and desolate the country he is exploring, the greater the difficulties and dangers under which he encounters these subjects of his earliest studies in science; so much keener is the delight with which he recognises them, and the more lasting is the impression which they leave. At this moment these common weeds more vividly recall to me that wild scene than does all my journal, and remind me how I went on my way, taxing my memory for all it ever knew of the geographical distribution of the shepherd’s purse, and musing on the probability of the plant having found its way thither over all Central Asia, and the ages that may have been occupied in its march.

On reaching 13,000 feet, the ground was everywhere hard and frozen, and I experienced the first symptoms of lassitude, headache, and giddiness; which however, were but slight, and only came on with severe exertion.

We encountered a group of Tibetans, encamped to leeward of an immense boulder of gneiss, against which they had raised a shelter with their salt-bags, removed from their herd of yaks, which were grazing close by. They looked miserably cold and haggard, and their little upturned eyes, much inflamed and bloodshot, testified to the hardships they had endured in their march from the salt regions: they were crouched round a small fire of juniper wood, smoking iron pipes with agate mouthpieces. A resting-house was in sight across the stream—a loose stone hut, to which we repaired. I wondered why these Tibetans had not taken possession of it, not being aware of the value they attach to a rock, on account of the great warmth which it imbibes from the sun’s rays during the day, and retains at night. This invaluable property of otherwise inhospitable gneiss and granite I had afterwards many opportunities of proving; and when driven for a night’s shelter to such as rude nature might afford on the bleak mountain, I have had my blankets laid beneath “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

The name of Dhamersala is applied, in the mountains as in the plains of India, to a house provided for the accommodation of travellers, whether it be one of the beautiful caravanserais built to gratify the piety, ostentation, or benevolence of a rajah, or such a miserable shieling of rough stone and plank as that of Tuquoroma, in which we took up our quarters, at 13,000 feet elevation. A cheerful fire soon blazed on the earthen floor, filling the room with the pungent odour of juniper, which made our eyes smart and water. The Ghorkas withdrew to one corner, and my Lepchas to a second, while one end was screened off for my couch; unluckily, the wall faced the north-east, and in that direction there was a gulley in the snowy mountains, down which the wind swept with violence, penetrating to my bed. I had calculated upon a good night’s rest here, which I much needed, having been worried and unwell at Wallanchoon, owing to the Guobah’s obstinacy. I had not then learnt how to treat such conduct, and just before retiring to rest had further been informed by the Havildar that the Guobah declared we should find no food on our return. To remain in these mountains without a supply was impossible, and the delay, of sending to Mywa Guola would not have answered; so I long lay awake, occupied in arranging measures. The night was clear and very cold; the thermometer falling to 19° at 9 p.m., and to 12° in the night, and that by my bedside to 20°.

On the following morning (Nov. 26th) I started with a small party to visit the pass, continuing up the broad, grassy valley; much snow lay on the ground at 13,500 feet, which had fallen the previous month; and several glaciers were seen in lateral ravines at about the same elevation. After a couple of miles, we left the broad valley, which continued north-west, and struck northward up a narrow, stony, and steep gorge, crossing an immense ancient moraine at its mouth. This path, which we followed for seven or eight miles, led up to the pass, winding considerably, and keeping along the south-east exposures, which, being the most sunny, are the freest from snow. The morning was splendid, the atmosphere over the dry rocks and earth, at 14,000 feet, vibrating from the power of the sun’s rays, whilst vast masses of blue glacier and fields of snow choked every galley, and were spread over all shady places. Although, owing to the steepness and narrowness of the gorge, no view was obtained, the scenery was wild and very grand. Just below where perpetual snow descends to the path, an ugly carved head of a demon, with blood-stained cheeks and goggle-eyes, was placed in a niche of rock, and protected by a glass.

At 15,000 feet, the snow closed in on the path from all sides, whether perpetual, glacial, or only the October fall, I could not tell; the guide declared it to be perpetual henceforward, though now deepened by the very heavy October fall; the path was cut some three feet through it. Enormous boulders of gneiss cumbered the bottom of the gorge, which gradually widened as we approached its summit; and rugged masses of black and red gneiss and mica schist pierced the snow, and stood out in dismal relief. For four miles continuously we proceeded over snow; which was much honey-combed on the surface, and treacherous from the icy streams it covered, into which we every now and then stumbled; there was scarcely a trace of vegetation, and the cold was excessive, except in the sun.

Towards the summit of the pass the snow lay very deep, and we followed the course of a small stream which cut through it, the walls of snow being breast-high on each side; the path was still frequented by yaks, of which we overtook a small party going to Tibet, laden with planks. All the party appeared alike overcome by lassitude, shortness and difficulty of breathing, a sense of weight on the stomach, giddiness and headache, with tightness across the temples.

Just below the summit was a complete bay of snow, girdled with two sharp peaks of red baked schists and gneiss, strangely contorted, and thrown up at all angles with no prevalent dip or strike, and permeated with veins of granite. The top itself, or boundary between Nepal and Tibet, is a low saddle between two rugged ridges of rock, with a cairn built on it, adorned with bits of stick and rag covered with Tibetan inscriptions. The view into Tibet was not at all distant, and was entirely of snowy mountains, piled ridge over ridge; three of these spurs must, it is said, be crossed before any descent can be made to the Chomachoo river (as the Arun is called in Tibet), on which is the frontier fort of the Tibetans, and which is reached in two or three days. There is no plain or level ground of any kind before reaching that river, of which the valley is said to be wide and flat.

Starting at 10 a.m., we did not reach the top till 3.30 p.m.; we had halted nowhere, but the last few miles had been most laborious, and the three of us who gained the summit were utterly knocked up. Fortunately I carried my own barometer; it indicated 16·206 inches, giving by comparative observations with Calcutta 16,764 feet, and with Dorjiling, 16,748 feet, as the height of the pass. The thermometer stood at 18°, and the sun being now hidden behind rocks, the south-east wind was bitterly cold. Hitherto the sun had appeared as a clearly defined sparkling globe, against a dark-blue sky; but the depth of the azure blue was not so striking as I had been led to suppose, by the accounts of previous travellers, in very lofty regions. The plants gathered near the top of the pass were species of Compositæ, grass, and Arenaria; the most curious was Saussurea gossypina, which forms great clubs of the softest white wool, six inches to a foot high, its flowers and leaves seeming uniformly clothed with the warmest fur that nature can devise. Generally speaking, the alpine plants of the Himalaya are quite unprovided with any special protection of this kind; it is the prevalence and conspicuous nature of the exceptions that mislead, and induce the careless observer to generalise hastily from solitary instances; for the prevailing alpine genera of the Himalaya, Arenarias, primroses, saxifrages, fumitories, Ranunculi, gentians, grasses, sedges, etc., have almost uniformly naked foliage.

We descended to the foot of the pass in about two hours, darkness overtaking us by the way; the twilight, however, being prolonged by the glare of the snow. Fearing the distance to Tuquoroma might be too great to permit of our returning thither the same night; I had had a few things brought hither during the day, and finding they had arrived, we encamped under the shelter of some enormous boulders (at 13,500 feet), part of an ancient moraine, which extended some distance along the bed of the narrow valley. Except an excruciating headache, I felt no ill effects from my ascent; and after a supper of tea and biscuit, I slept soundly.

On the following morning the temperature was 28° at 6.30 a.m., and rose to 30° when the sun appeared over the mountains at 8.15, at which time the black bulb thermometer suddenly mounted to 112°, upwards of 80° above the temperature of the air. The sky was brilliantly clear, with a very dry, cold, north wind blowing down the snowy valley of the pass.

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