Chapter X
Return from Wallanchoon pass—Procure a bazaar at village—Dance of Lamas—Blacking face, Tibetan custom of—Temple and convent—Leave for Kanglachem pass—Send part of party back to Dorjiling—Yangma Guola—Drunken Tibetans—Guobah of Wallanchoon—Camp at foot of Great Moraine—View from top—Geological speculations—Height of moraines—Cross dry lake-bed—Glaciers—More moraines—Terraces—Yangma temples—Jos, books and furniture—Peak of Nango—Lake—Arrive at village—Cultivation—Scenery—Potatos—State of my provisions—Pass through village—Gigantic boulders Terraces—Wild sheep—Lake-beds—Sun’s power—Piles of gravel and detritus—Glaciers and moraines—Pabuk, elevation of—Moonlight scene—Return to Yangma—Temperature, etc.—Geological causes of phenomena in valley—Scenery of valley on descent.
I returned to the village of Wallanchoon, after collecting all the plants I could around my camp; amongst them a common-looking dock abounded in the spots which the yaks had frequented.
The ground was covered, as with heather, with abundance of creeping dwarf juniper, Andromeda, and dwarf rhododendron. On arriving at the village, I refused to receive the Guobah, unless he opened a bazaar at daylight on the following morning, where my people might purchase food; and threatened to bring charges against him before his Rajah. At the same time I arranged for sending the main body of my party down the Tambur, and so back to Sikkim, whilst I should, with as few as possible, visit the Kanglachem (Tibetan) pass in the adjacent valley to the eastward, and then, crossing the Nango, Kambachen and Kanglanamo passes, reach Jongri in Sikkim, on the south flank of Kinchinjunga.
Strolling out in the afternoon I saw a dance of Lamas; they were disfigured with black paint[77] and covered with rags, feathers, and scarlet cloth, and they carried long poles with bells and banners attached; thus equipped, they marched through the village, every now and then halting, when they danced and gesticulated to the rude music of cymbals and horns, the bystanders applauding with shouts, crackers, and alms.
[77] I shall elsewhere have to refer to the Tibetan custom of daubing the face with black pigment to protect the skin from the excessive cold and dryness of these lofty regions; and to the ludicrous imposition that was passed on the credulity of MM. Huc and Gabet.
I walked up to the convents, which were long ugly buildings, several stories high, built of wood, and daubed with red and grey paint. The priests were nowhere to be found, and an old withered nun, whom I disturbed husking millet in a large wooden mortar, fled at my approach. The temple stood close by the convent, and had a broad low architrave: the walls sloped inwards, as did the lintels: the doors were black, and almost covered with a gigantic and disproportioned painting of a head, with bloody cheeks and huge teeth; it was surrounded by myriads of goggle eyes, which seemed to follow one about everywhere; and though in every respect rude, the effect was somewhat imposing. The similarly proportioned gloomy portals of Egyptian fanes naturally invite comparison; but the Tibetan temples lack the sublimity of these; and the uncomfortable creeping sensation produced by the many sleepless eyes of Boodh’s numerous incarnations is very different from the awe with which we contemplate the outspread wings of the Egyptian symbol, and feel as in the presence of the God who says, “I am Osiris the Great: no man hath dared to lift my veil.”
I had ascended behind the village, but returned down the “via sacra,” a steep paved path flanked by mendongs or low stone dykes, into which were let rows of stone slabs, inscribed with the sacred “Om Mani Padmi om.”—“Hail to him of the lotus and jewel”; an invocation of Sakkya, who is usually represented holding a lotus flower with a jewel in it.
On the following morning, a scanty supply of vcry dirty rice was produced, at a very high price. I had, however, so divided my party as not to require a great amount of food, intending to send most of the people back by the Tambur to Dorjiling. I kept nineteen persons in all, selecting the most willing, as it was evident the journey at this season would be one of great hardship: we took seven days’ food, which was as much as they could carry. At noon, I left Wallanchoon, and mustered my party at the junction of the Tambur and Yangma, whence I dismissed the party for Dorjiling, with my collections of plants, minerals, etc., and proceeded with the chosen ones to ascend the Yangma river. The scenery was wild and very grand, our path lying through a narrow gorge, choked with pine trees, down which the river roared in a furious torrent; while the mountains on each side were crested with castellated masses of rock, and sprinkled with snow. The road was very bad, often up ladders, and along planks lashed to the faces of precipices, and over-hanging the torrent, which it crossed several times by plank bridges. By dark we arrived at Yangma Guola, a collection of empty wood huts buried in the rocky forest-clad valley, and took possession of a couple. They were well built, raised on posts, with a stage and ladder at the gable end, and consisted of one good-sized apartment. Around was abundance of dock, together with three common English plants.[78]
[78] Cardamine hirsuta, Limosella aquatica, and Juncus bufonius.
The night was calm, misty, and warm (Max. 41·5°, Min. 29°) for the elevation (9,300 feet). During the night, I was startled out of my sleep by a blaze of light, and jumping up, found myself in presence of a party of most sinister-looking, black, ragged Tibetans, armed with huge torches of pine, that filled the room with flame and pitchy smoke. I remembered their arriving just before dark, and their weapons dispelled my fears, for they came armed with bamboo jugs of Murwa beer, and were very drunk and very amiable: they grinned, nodded, kotowed, lolled out their tongues, and scratched their ears in the most seductive manner, then held out their jugs, and besought me by words and gestures to drink and be happy too. I awoke my servant (always a work of difficulty), and with some trouble ejected the visitors, happily without setting the house on fire. I heard them toppling head over heels down the stair, which I afterwards had drawn up to prevent further intrusion, and in spite of their drunken orgies, was soon lulled to sleep again by the music of the roaring river.
On the 29th November, I continued my course north up the Yangma valley, which after five miles opened considerably, the trees disappearing, and the river flowing more tranquilly, and through a broader valley, when above 11,000 feet elevation. The Guobah of Wallanchoon overtook us on the road; on his way, he said, to collect the revenues at Yangma village, but in reality to see what I was about. He owns five considerable villages, and is said to pay a tax of 6000 rupees (600 pounds) to the Rajah of Nepal: this is no doubt a great exaggeration, but the revenues of such a position, near a pass frequented almost throughout the year, must be considerable. Every yak going and coming is said to pay l_s_., and every horse 4_s_.; cattle, sheep, ponies, land, and wool are all taxed; he exports also quantities of timber to Tibet, and various articles from the plains of India. He joined my party and halted where I did, had his little Chinese rug spread, and squatted cross-legged on it, whilst his servant prepared his brick tea with salt, butter, and soda, of which he partook, snuffed, smoked, rose up, had all his traps repacked, and was off again.
We encamped at a most remarkable place: the valley was broad, with little vegetation but stunted tree-junipers: rocky snow-topped mountains rose on either side, bleak, bare, and rugged; and in front, close above my tent, was a gigantic wall of rocks, piled—as if by the Titans—completely across the valley, for about three-quarters of a mile. This striking phenomenon had excited all my curiosity on first obtaining a view of it. The path, I found, led over it, close under its west end, and wound amongst the enormous detached fragments of which it was formed, and which were often eighty feet square: all were of gneiss and schist, with abundance of granite in blocks and veins. A superb view opened from the top, revealing its nature to be a vast moraine, far below the influence of any existing glaciers, but which at some antecedent period had been thrown across by a glacier descending to 10,000 feet, from a lateral valley on the east flank. Standing on the top, and looking south, was the Yangma valley (up which I had come), gradually contracting to a defile, girdled by snow-tipped mountains, whose rocky flanks mingled with the black pine forest below. Eastward the moraine stretched south of the lateral valley, above which towered the snowy peak of Nango, tinged rosy red, and sparkling in the rays of the setting sun: blue glaciers peeped from every gulley on its side, but these were 2000 to 3000 feet above this moraine; they were small too, and their moraines were mere gravel, compared with this. Many smaller consecutive moraines, also, were evident along the bottom of that lateral valley, from this great one up to the existing glaciers. Looking up the Yangma was a flat grassy plain, hemmed in by mountains, and covered with other stupendous moraines, which rose ridge behind ridge, and cut off the view of all but the mountain tops to the north. The river meandered through the grassy plain (which appeared a mile and a half broad at the utmost, and perhaps as long), and cut through the great moraine on its eastern side, just below the junction of the stream from the glacial valley, which, at the lower part of its course, flowed over a broad steep shingle bed.
I descended to my camp, full of anxious anticipations for the morrow; while the novelty of the scene, and its striking character, the complexity of the phenomena, the lake-bed, the stupendous ice-deposited moraine, and its remoteness from any existing ice, the broad valley and open character of the country, were all marked out as so many problems suddenly conjured up for my unaided solution, and kept me awake for many hours. I had never seen a glacier or moraine on land before, but being familiar with sea ice and berg transport, from voyaging in the South Polar regions, I was strongly inclined to attribute the formation of this moraine to a period when a glacial ocean stood high on the Himalaya, made fiords of the valleys, and floated bergs laden with blocks from the lateral gulleys, which the winds and currents would deposit along certain lines. On the following morning I carried a barometer to the top of the moraine, which proved to be upwards of 700 feet above the floor of the valley, and 400 above the dry lake-bed which it bounded, and to which we descended on our route up the valley. The latter was grassy and pebbly, perfectly level, and quite barren, except a very few pines at the bases of the encircling mountains, and abundance of rhododendrons, Andromeda and juniper on the moraines. Isolated moraines occurred along both flanks of the valley, some higher than that I have described, and a very long one was thrown nearly across from the upper end of another lateral gulley on the east side, also leading up to the glaciers of Nango. This second moraine commenced a mile and a half above the first, and abutting on the east flank of the valley, stretched nearly across, and then curving round, ran down it, parallel to and near the west flank, from which it was separated by the Yangma river: it was abruptly terminated by a conical hill of boulders, round whose base the river flowed, entering the dry lake-bed from the west, and crossing it in a south-easterly direction to the western extremity of the great moraine.
The road, on its ascent to the second moraine, passed over an immense accumulation of glacial detritus at the mouth of the second lateral valley, entirely formed of angular fragments of gneiss and granite, loosely bound together by felspathic sand. The whole was disposed in concentric ridges radiating from the mouth of the valley, and descending to the flat; these were moraines in petto, formed by the action of winter snow and ice upon the loose débris. A stream flowed over this débris, dividing into branches before reaching the lake-bed, where its waters were collected, and whence it meandered southward to fall into the Yangma.
From the top of the second moraine, a very curious scene opened up the valley, of another but more stony and desolate level lake-bed, through which the Yangma (here very rapid) rushed, cutting a channel about sixty feet deep; the flanks of this second lake-bed were cut most distinctly into two principal terraces, which were again subdivided into others, so that the general appearance was that of many raised beaches, but each so broken up, that, with the exception of one on the banks of the river, none were continuous for any distance. We descended 200 feet, and crossed the valley and river obliquely in a north-west direction, to a small temple and convent which stood on a broad flat terrace under the black, precipitous, west flank: this gave me a good opportunity of examining the structure of this part of the valley, which was filled with an accumulation, probably 200 feet thick at the deepest part, of angular gravel and enormous boulders, both imbedded in the gravel, and strewed on the flat surfaces of the terraces. The latter were always broadest opposite to the lateral valleys, perfectly horizontal for the short distance that they were continuous; and very barren; there were no traces of fossils, nor could I assure myself of stratification. The accumulation was wholly glacial; and probably a lake had supervened on the melting of the great glacier and its recedence, which lake, confined by a frozen moraine, would periodically lose its waters by sudden accessions of heat melting the ice of the latter. Stratified silt, no doubt, once covered the lake bottom, and the terraces have, in succession, been denuded of it by rain and snow. These causes are now in operation amongst the stupendous glaciers of north-east Sikkim, where valleys, dammed up by moraines, exhibit lakes hemmed in between these, the base of the glacier, and the flanks of the valleys.
Yangma convents stood at the mouth of a gorge which opened upon the uppermost terrace; and the surface of the latter, here well covered with grass, was furrowed into concentric radiating ridges, which were very conspicuous from a distance. The buildings consisted of a wretched collection of stone huts, painted red, enclosed by loose stone dykes. Two shockingly dirty Lamas received me and conducted me to the temple, which had very thick walls, but was undistinguishable from the other buildings. A small door opened upon an apartment piled full of old battered gongs, drums, scraps of silk hangings, red cloth, broken praying-machines—relics much resembling those in the lumber-room of a theatre. A ladder led from this dismal hole to the upper story, which was entered by a handsomely carved and gilded door: within, all was dark, except from a little lattice-window covered with oil-paper. On one side was the library, a carved case, with a hundred gilded pigeon-holes, each holding a real or sham book, and each closed by a little square door, on which hung a bag full of amulets. In the centre of the book-case was a recess, containing a genuine Jos or Fo, graced with his Chinese attribute of very long pendulous moustaches and beard, and totally wanting that air of contemplative repose which the Tibetan Lamas give to their idols. Banners were suspended around, with paintings of Lhassa, Teshoo Loombo, and various incarnations of Boodh. The books were of the usual Tibetan form, oblong squares of separate block-printed leaves of paper, made in Nepal or Bhotan from the bark of a Daphne, bound together by silk cords, and placed between ornamented wooden boards. On our way up the valley, we had passed some mendongs and chaits, the latter very pretty stone structures, consisting of a cube, pyramid, hemisphere, and cone placed on the top of one another, forming together the tasteful combination which appears on the cover of these volumes.
Beyond the convents the valley again contracted, and on crossing a third, but much lower, moraine, a lake opened to view, surrounded by flat terraces, and a broad gravelly shore, part of the lake being dry. To the west, the cliffs were high, black and steep: to the east a large lateral valley, filled at about 1500 feet up with blue glaciers, led (as did the other lateral valleys) to the gleaming snows of Nango; the moraine, too, here abutted on the east flank of the Yangma valley, below the mouth of the lateral one. Much snow (from the October fall) lay on the ground, and the cold was pinching in the shade; still I could not help attempting to sketch this wonderfully grand scene, especially as lakes in the Himalaya are extremely rare: the present one was about a mile long, very shallow, but broad, and as smooth as glass: it reminded me of the tarn in Glencoe. The reflected lofty peak of Nango appeared as if frozen deep down in its glassy bed, every snowy crest and ridge being rendered with perfect precision.
Nango is about 18,000 feet high; it is the next lofty mountain of the Kinchinjunga group to the west of Junnoo, and I doubt if any equally high peak occurs again for some distance further west in Nepal. Facing the Yangma valley, it presents a beautiful range of precipices of black rock, capped with a thick crust of snow: below the cliffs the snow again appears continuously and very steep, for 2000 to 3000 feet downwards, where it terminates in glaciers that descend to 14,000 feet. The steepest snow-beds appear cut into vertical ridges, whence the whole snowy face is—as it were—crimped in perpendicular, closely-set, zigzag lines, doubtless caused by the melting process, which furrows the surface of the snow into channels by which the water is carried off: the effect is very beautiful, but impossible to represent on paper, from the extreme delicacy of the shadows, and at the same time the perfect definition and precision of the outlines.
Towards the head of the lake, its bed was quite dry and gravelly, and the river formed a broad delta over it: the terraces here were perhaps 100 feet above its level, those at the lower end not nearly so much. Beyond the lake, the river became again a violent torrent, rushing in a deep chasm, till we arrived at the fork of the valley, where we once more met with numerous dry lake-beds, with terraces high up on the mountain sides.
In the afternoon we reached the village of Yangma, a miserable collection of 200 to 300 stone huts, nestling under the steep south-east flank of a lofty, flat-topped terrace, laden with gigantic glacial boulders, and projecting southward from a snowy mountain which divides the valley. We encamped on the flat under the village, amongst some stone dykes, enclosing cultivated fields. One arm of the valley runs hence N.N.E. amongst snowy mountains, and appeared quite full of moraines; the other, or continuation of the Yangma, runs W.N.W., and leads to the Kanglachem pass.
Near our camp (of which the elevation was 13,500 feet), radishes, barley, wheat, potatos, and turnips, were cultivated as summer crops, and we even saw some on the top of the terrace, 400 feet above our camp, or nearly 14,000 feet above the sea; these were grown in small fields cleared of stones, and protected by dykes.
The scenery, though dismal, (no juniper even attaining this elevation,) was full of interest and grandeur, from the number and variety of snowy peaks and glaciers all around the elevated horizon; the ancient lake-beds, now green or brown with scanty vegetation, the vast moraines, the ridges of glacial débris, the flat terraces, marking, as it were with parallel roads, the bluff sides of the mountains, the enormous boulders perched upon them, and strewed everywhere around, the little Boodhist monuments of quaint, picturesque shapes, decorated with poles and banners, the many-coloured dresses of the people, the brilliant blue of the cloudless heaven by day, the depth of its blackness by night, heightened by the light of the stars, that blaze and twinkle with a lustre unknown in less lofty regions: all these were subjects for contemplation, rendered more impressive by the stillness of the atmosphere, and the silence that reigned around. The village seemed buried in repose throughout the day: the inhabitants had already hybernated, their crops were stored, the curd made and dried, the passes closed, the soil frozen, the winter’s stock of fuel housed, and the people had retired into the caverns of their half subterranean houses, to sleep, spin wool, and think of Boodh, if of anything at all, the dead, long winter through. The yaks alone can find anything to do: so long as any vegetation remains they roam and eat it, still yielding milk, which the women take morning and evening, when their shrill whistle and cries are heard for a few minutes, as they call the grunting animals. No other sounds, save the harsh roar and hollow echo of the falling rock, glacier, or snow-bed, disturbed the perfect silence of the day or night.[79]
[79] Snow covers the ground at Yangma from December till April, and the falls are said to be very heavy, at times amounting to 12 feet in depth.
I had taken three days’ food to Yangma, and stayed there as long as it lasted: the rest of my provisions I had left below the first moraine, where a lateral valley leads east over the Nango pass to the Kambachen valley, which lay on the route back to Sikkim.
I was premature in complaining of my Wallanchoon tents, those provided for me at Yangma being infinitely worse, mere rags, around which I piled sods as a defence from the insidious piercing night-wind that descended from the northern glaciers in calm, but most keen, breezes. There was no food to be procured in the village, except a little watery milk, and a few small watery potatos. The latter have only very recently been introduced amongst the Tibetans, from the English garden at the Nepalese capital, I believe, and their culture has not spread in these regions further east than Kinchinjunga, but they will very soon penetrate into Tibet from Dorjiling, or eastward from Nepal. My private stock of provisions—consisting chiefly of preserved meats from my kind friend Mr. Hodgson—had fallen very low; and I here found to my dismay that of four remaining two-pound cases, provided as meat, three contained prunes, and one “dindon aux truffes!” Never did luxuries come more inopportunely; however the greasy French viand served for many a future meal as sauce to help me to bolt my rice, and according to the theory of chemists, to supply animal heat in these frigid regions. As for my people, they were not accustomed to much animal food; two pounds of rice, with ghee and chilis, forming their common diet under cold and fatigue. The poorer Tibetans, especially, who undergo great privation and toil, live almost wholly on barley-meal, with tea, and a very little butter and salt: this is not only the case with those amongst whom I mixed so much, but is also mentioned by MM. Huc and Gabet, as having been observed by them in other parts of Tibet.
On the 1st of December I visited the village and terrace, and proceeded to the head of the Yangma valley, in order to ascend the Kanglachem pass as far as practicable. The houses are low, built of stone, of no particular shape, and are clustered in groups against the steep face of the terrace; filthy lanes wind amongst them, so narrow, that if you are not too tall, you look into the slits of windows on either hand, by turning your head, and feel the noisome warm air in whiffs against your face. Glacial boulders lie scattered throughout the village, around and beneath the clusters of houses, from which it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the native rock. I entered one house by a narrow low door through walls four feet thick, and found myself in an apartment full of wool, juniper-wood, and dried dung for fuel: no one lived in the lower story, which was quite dark, and as I stood in it my head was in the upper, to which I ascended by a notched pole (like that in the picture of a Kamschatk house in Cook’s voyage), and went into a small low room. The inmates looked half asleep, they were intolerably indolent and filthy, and were employed in spinning wool and smoking. A hole in the wall of the upper apartment led me on to the stone roof of the neighbouring house, from which I passed to the top of a glacial boulder, descending thence by rude steps to the narrow alley. Wishing to see as much as I could, I was led on a winding course through, in and out, and over the tops of the houses of the village, which alternately reminded me of a stone quarry or gravel pit, and gipsies living in old lime-kilns; and of all sorts of odd places that are turned to account as human habitations.
From the village I ascended to the top of the terrace, which is a perfectly level, sandy, triangular plain, pointing down the valley at the fork of the latter, and abutting against the flank of a steep, rocky, snow-topped mountain to the northward. Its length is probably half a mile from north to south, but it runs for two miles westward up the valley, gradually contracting. The surface, though level, is very uneven, being worn into hollows, and presenting ridges and hillocks of blown sand and gravel, with small black tufts of rhododendron. Enormous boulders of gneiss and granite were scattered over the surface; one of the ordinary size, which I measured, was seventy feet in girth, and fifteen feet above the ground, into which it had partly sunk. From the southern pointed end I took sketches of the opposite flanks of the valleys east and west. The river was about 400 feet below me, and flowed in a little flat lake-bed; other terraces skirted it, cut out, as it were, from the side of that I was on. On the opposite flank of the valley were several superimposed terraces, of which the highest appeared to tally with the level I occupied, and the lowest was raised very little above the river; none were continuous for any distance, but the upper one in particular, could be most conspicuously traced up and down the main valley, whilst, on looking across to the eastern valley, a much higher, but less distinctly marked one appeared on it. The road to the pass lay west-north-west up the north bank of the Yangma river, on the great terrace; for two miles it was nearly level along the gradually narrowing shelf, at times dipping into the steep gulleys formed by lateral torrents from the mountains; and as the terrace disappeared, or melted, as it were, into the rising floor of the valley, the path descended upon the lower and smaller shelf.
We came suddenly upon a flock of gigantic wild sheep, feeding on scanty tufts of dried sedge and grass; there were twenty-five of these enormous animals, of whose dimensions the term sheep gives no idea: they are very long-legged, stand as high as a calf, and have immense horns, so large that the fox is said to take up his abode in their hollows, when detached and bleaching, on the barren mountains of Tibet. Though very wild, I am sure I could easily have killed a couple had I had my gun, but I had found it necessary to reduce my party so uncompromisingly, that I could not afford a man both for my gun and instruments, and had sent the former back to Dorjiling, with Mr. Hodgson’s bird-stuffers, who had broken one of theirs. Travelling without fire-arms sounds strange in India, but in these regions animal life is very rare, game is only procured with much hunting and trouble, and to come within shot of a flock of wild sheep was a contingency I never contemplated. Considering how very short we were of any food, and quite out of animal diet, I could not but bitterly regret the want of a gun, but consoled myself by reflecting that the instruments were still more urgently required to enable me to survey this extremely interesting valley. As it was, the great beasts trotted off, and turned to tantalise me by grazing within an easy stalking distance. We saw several other flocks, of thirty to forty, during the day, but never, either on this or any future occasion, within shot. The Ovis Ammon of Pallas stands from four to five feet high, and measures seven feet from nose to tail; it is quite a Tibetan animal, and is seldom seen below 14,000 feet, except when driven lower by snow; and I have seen it as high as 18,000 feet. The same animal, I believe, is found in Siberia, and is allied to the Big-horn of North America.
Soon after descending to the bed of the valley, which is broad and open, we came on a second dry lake-bed, a mile long, with shelving banks all round, heavily snowed on the shaded side; the river was divided into many arms, and meandered over it, and a fine glacier-bound valley opened into it from the south. There were no boulders on its surface, which was pebbly, with tufts of grass and creeping tamarisk. On the banks I observed much granite, with large mica crystals, hornstone, tourmaline, and stratified quartz, with granite veins parallel to the foliation or lamination.
A rather steep ascent of a mile, through a contracted part of the valley, led to another and smaller lake-bed, a quarter of a mile long and 100 yards broad, covered with patches of snow, and having no lateral valley opening into it: it faced the now stupendous masses of snow and ice which filled the upper part of the Yangma valley. This lake-bed (elevation, 15,186 feet) was strewed with enormous boulders; a rude stone hut stood near it, where we halted for a few minutes at 1 p.m., when the temperature was 42·2°, while the dew-point was only 20·7°.[80] At the same time, the black bulb thermometer, fully exposed on the snow, rose 54° above the air, and the photometer gave 10·572. Though the sun’s power was so great, there was, however, no appearance of the snow melting, evaporation proceeding with too great rapidity.
[80] This indicates a very dry state of the air, the saturation-point being 0·133°; whereas, at the same hour at Calcutta it was 0·559°.
Enormous piles of gravel and sand had descended upon the upper end of this lake-bed, forming shelves, terraces, and curving ridges, apparently consolidated by ice, and covered in many places with snow. Following the stream, we soon came to an immense moraine, which blocked up the valley, formed of angular boulders, some of which were fifty feet high. Respiration had been difficult for some time, and the guide we had taken from the village said we were some hours from the top of the pass, and could get but a little way further; we however proceeded, plunging through the snow, till on cresting the moraine a stupendous scene presented itself. A gulf of moraines, and enormous ridges of débris, lay at our feet, girdled by an amphitheatre of towering, snow-clad peaks, rising to 17,000 and 18,000 feet all around. Black scarped precipices rose on every side; deep snow-beds and blue glaciers rolled down every gulley, converging in the hollow below, and from each transporting its own materials, there ensued a complication of moraines, that presented no order to the eye. In spite of their mutual interference, however, each had raised a ridge of débris or moraine parallel to itself.
We descended with great difficulty through the soft snow that covered the moraine, to the bed of this gulf of snow and glaciers; and halted by an enormous stone, above the bed of a little lake, which was snowed all over, but surrounded by two superimposed level terraces, with sharply defined edges. The moraine formed a barrier to its now frozen waters, and it appeared to receive the drainage of many glaciers, which filtered through their gravelly ridges and moraines.
We could make no further progress; the pass lay at the distance of several hours’ march, up a valley to the north, down which the glacier must have rolled that had deposited this great moraine; the pass had been closed since October, it being very lofty, and the head of this valley was far more snowy than that at Wallanchoon. We halted in the snow from 3 to 4 p.m., during which time I again took angles and observations; the height of this spot, called Pabuk, is 16,038 feet, whence the pass is probably considerably over 17,000 feet, for there was a steep ascent beyond our position. The sun sank at 3 p.m., and the thermometer immediately fell from 35° to 30·75°.[81]
[81] At 4 o’clock, to 29·5°, the average dew-point was 16·3°, and dryness 0·55; weight of vapour in a cubic foot, 1·33 grains.
After fixing in my note and sketch books the principal features of this sublime scene, we returned down the valley: the distance to our camp being fully eight miles, night overtook us before we got half-way, but a two days’ old moon guided us perfectly, a remarkable instance of the clearness of the atmosphere at these great elevations. Lassitude, giddiness, and headache came on as our exertions increased, and took away the pleasure I should otherwise have felt in contemplating by moonlight the varied phenomena, which seemed to crowd upon the restless imagination, in the different forms of mountain, glacier, moraine, lake, boulder and terrace. Happily I had noted everything on my way up, and left nothing intentionally to be done on returning. In making such excursions as this, it is above all things desirable to seize and book every object worth noticing on the way out: I always carried my note-book and pencil tied to my jacket pocket, and generally walked with them in my hand. It is impossible to begin observing too soon, or to observe too much: if the excursion is long, little is ever done on the way home; the bodily powers being mechanically exerted, the mind seeks repose, and being fevered through over-exertion, it can endure no train of thought, or be brought to bear on a subject.
During my stay at Yangma, the thermometer never rose to 50°, it fell to 14·75° at night; the ground was frozen for several inches below the surface, but at two feet depth its temperature was 37·5°. The black bulb thermometer rose on one occasion 84° above the surrounding air. Before leaving, I measured by angles and a base-line the elevations of the great village-terrace above the river, and that of a loftier one, on the west flank of the main valley; the former was about 400 and the latter 700 feet.
Considering this latter as the upper terrace, and concluding that it marks a water level, it is not very difficult to account for its origin. There is every reason to suppose that the flanks of the valley were once covered to the elevation of the upper terrace, with an enormous accumulation of débris; though it does not follow that the whole valley was filled by ice-action to the same depth; the effect of glaciers being to deposit moraines between themselves and the sides of the valley they fill; as also to push forward similar accumulations. Glaciers from each valley, meeting at the fork, where their depth would be 700 feet of ice, would both deposit the necessary accumulation along the flanks of the great valley, and also throw a barrier across it. The melting waters of such glaciers would accumulate in lakes, confined by the frozen earth, between the moraines and mountains. Such lakes, though on a small scale, are found at the terminations and sides of existing glaciers, and are surrounded by terraces of shingle and débris; these terraces being laid bare by the sudden drainage of the lakes during seasons of unusual warmth. To explain the phenomena of the Yangma valley, it may be necessary to demand larger lakes and deeper accumulations of débris than are now familiar to us, but the proofs of glaciers having once descended to from 8000 to 10,000 feet in every Sikkim and east Nepal valley communicating with mountains above 16,000 feet elevation, are overwhelming, and the glaciers must, in some cases, have been fully forty miles long, and 500 feet in depth. The absence of any remains of a moraine, or of blocks of rock in the valley below the fork, is I believe, the only apparent objection to this theory; but, as I shall elsewhere have occasion to observe, the magnitude of the moraines bears no fixed proportion to that of the glacier, and at Pabuk, the steep ridges of débris, which were heaped up 200 feet high, were far more striking than the more usual form of moraine.
On my way up to Yangma I had rudely plotted the valley, and selected prominent positions for improving my plan on my return: these I now made use of, taking bearings with the azimuth compass, and angles by means of a pocket sextant. The result of my running-survey of the whole valley, from 10,000 to 16,000 feet, I have given along with a sketch-map of my routes in India, which accompanies this volume.
Chapter XI
Ascend to Nango mountain—Moraines—Glaciers—Vegetation—Rhododendron Hodgsoni—Rocks—Honey-combed surface of snow—Perpetual snow—Top of pass—View—Elevation—Geology—Distance of sound—Plants—Temperature—Scenery—Cliffs of granite and hurled boulders—Camp—Descent—Pheasants—Larch—Himalayan pines—Distribution of Deodar, note on—Tassichooding temples—Kambachen village—Cultivation—Moraines in valley, distribution of—Picturesque lake-beds, and their vegetation—Tibetan sheep and goats—Cryptogramma crispa—Ascent to Choonjerma pass—View of Junnoo—Rocks of its summit—Misty ocean—Nepal peaks—Top of pass—Temperature, and observations—Gorgeous sunset—Descent to Yalloong valley—Loose path—Night scenes—Musk deer.
We passed the night a few miles below the great moraine, in a pine-wood (alt. 11,000 feet) opposite the gorge which leads to the Kambachen or Nango pass, over the south shoulder of the mountain of that name: it is situated on a ridge dividing the Yangma river from that of Kambachen, which latter falls into the Tambur opposite Lelyp.
The road crosses the Yangma (which is about fifteen feet wide), and immediately ascends steeply to the south-east, over a rocky moraine, clothed with a dense thicket of rhododendrons, mountain-ash, maples, pine, birch, juniper, etc. The ground was covered with silvery flakes of birch bark, and that of Rhododendron Hodgsoni, which is as delicate as tissue-paper, and of a pale flesh-colour. I had never before met with this species, and was astonished at the beauty of its foliage, which was of a beautiful bright green, with leaves sixteen inches long.
Beyond the region of trees and large shrubs the alpine rhododendrons filled the broken surface of the valley, growing with Potentilla, Honeysuckle, Polygonum, and dwarf juniper. The peak of Nango seemed to tower over the gorge, rising behind some black, splintered, rocky cliffs, sprinkled with snow, narrow defiles opened up through these cliffs to blue glaciers, and their mouths were invariably closed by beds of shingly moraines, curving outwards from either, flank in concentric ridges.
Towards the base of the peak, at about 14,000 feet, the scenery is very grand; a great moraine rises suddenly to the north-west, under the principal mass of snow and ice, and barren slopes of gravel descend from it; on either side are rugged precipices; the ground is bare and stony, with patches of brown grass: and, on looking back, the valley appears very steep to the first shrubby vegetation, of dark green rhododendrons, bristling with ugly stunted pines.
We followed a valley to the south-east, so as to turn the flank of the peak; the path lying over beds of October snow at 14,000 feet, and over plashy ground, from its melting. Sometimes our way lay close to the black precipices on our right, under which the snow was deep; and we dragged ourselves along, grasping every prominence of the rock with our numbed fingers. Granite appeared in large veins in the crumpled gneiss at a great elevation, in its most beautiful and loosely-crystallised form, of pearly white prisms of felspar, glassy quartz, and milk-white flat plates of mica, with occasionally large crystals of tourmaline. Garnets were very frequent in the gneiss near the granite veins. Small rushes, grasses, and sedges formed the remaining vegetation, amongst which were the withered stalks of gentians, Sedum, Arenaria, Silene, and many Composite plants.
At a little below 15,000 feet, we reached enormous flat beds of snow, which were said to be perpetual, but covered deeply with the October fall. They were continuous, and like all the snow I saw at this season, the surface was honeycombed into thin plates, dipping north at a high angle; the intervening fissures were about six inches deep. A thick mist here overtook us, and this, with the great difficulty of picking our way, rendered the ascent very fatiguing. Being sanguine about obtaining a good view, I found it almost impossible to keep my temper under the aggravations of pain in the forehead, lassitude, oppression of breathing, a dense drizzling fog, a keen cold wind, a slippery footing, where I was stumbling at every few steps, and icy-cold wet feet, hands, and eyelids; the latter, odd as it sounds, I found a very disagreeable accompaniment of continued raw cold wind.
After an hour and a half’s toilsome ascent, during which we made but little progress, we reached the crest, crossing a broad shelf of snow between two rocky eminences; the ridge was unsnowed a little way down the east flank; this was, in a great measure, due to the eastern exposure being the more sunny, to the prevalence of the warm and melting south-east winds that blow up the deep Kambachen valley, and to the fact that the great snow-beds on the west side are drifted accumulations.[82] The mist cleared off, and I had a partial, though limited, view. To the north the blue ice-clad peak of Nango was still 2000 feet above us, its snowy mantle falling in great sweeps and curves into glacier-bound valleys, over which the ice streamed out of sight, bounded by black aiguilles of gneiss. The Yangma valley was quite hidden, but to the eastward the view across the stupendous gorge of the Kambachen, 5000 feet below, to the waste of snow, ice, and rock, piled in confusion along the top of the range of Junnoo and Choonjerma, parallel to this but higher, was very grand indeed: this we were to cross in two days, and its appearance was such, that our guide doubted the possibility of our doing it. A third and fourth mountain mass (unseen) lay beyond this, between us and Sikkim, divided by valleys as deep as those of Yangma and Kambachen.
[82] Such enormous beds of snow in depressions, or on gentle slopes, are generally adopted as indicating the lower limit of perpetual snow. They are, however, winter accumulations, due mainly to eddies of wind, of far more snow than can be melted in the following summer, being hence perennial in the ordinary sense of the word. They pass into the state of glacier ice, and, obeying the laws that govern the motions of a viscous fluid, so admirably elucidated by Forbes (“Travels in the Alps”), they flow downwards. A careful examination of those great beds of snow in the Alps, from whose position the mean lower level of perpetual snow, in that latitude, is deduced, has convinced me that these are mainly due to accumulations of this kind, and that the true limit of perpetual snow, or that point where all that falls melts, is much higher than it is usually supposed to be.
Having hung up my instruments, I ascended a few hundred feet to some naked rocks, to the northward; they were of much-crumpled and dislocated gneiss, thrown up at a very high angle, and striking north-west. Chlorite, schist, and quartz, in thin beds, alternated with the gneiss, and veins of granite and quartz, were injected through them.
It fell calm; when the distance to which the voice was carried was very remarkable; I could distinctly hear every word spoken 300 to 400 yards off, and did not raise my voice when I asked one of the men to bring me a hammer.
The few plants about were generally small tufted Arenarias and woolly Compositæ, with a thick-rooted Umbellifer that spread its short, fleshy leaves and branches flat on the ground; the root was very aromatic, but wedged close in the rock. The temperature at 4 p.m. was 23°, and bitterly cold; the elevation, 15,770 feet; dew-point, 16°. The air was not very dry; saturation-point, 0·670°, whereas at Calcutta it was 0·498° at the same hour.
The descent was to a broad, open valley, into which the flank of Nango dipped in tremendous precipices, which reared their heads in splintered snowy peaks. At their bases were shoots of débris fully 700 feet high, sloping at a steep angle. Enormous masses of rock, detached by the action of the frost and ice from the crags, were scattered over the bottom of the valley; they had been precipitated from above, and gaining impetus in their descent, bad been hurled to almost inconceivable distances from the parent cliff. All were of a very white, fine-grained crystallised granite, full of small veins of the same rock still more finely crystallised. The weathered surface of each block was black, and covered with moss and lichens; the others beautifully white, with clean, sharp-fractured edges. The material of which they were composed was so hard that I found it difficult to detach a specimen.
Darkness had already come on, and the coolies being far behind, we encamped by the light of the moon, shining through a thin fog, where we first found dwarf-juniper for fuel, at 13,500 feet. A little sleet fell during the night, which was tolerably fine, and not very cold; the minimum thermometer indicating 14·5°.
Having no tent-poles, I had some difficulty in getting my blankets arranged as a shelter, which was done by making them slant from the side of a boulder, on the top of which one end was kept by heavy stones; under this roof I laid my bed, on a mass of rhododendron and juniper-twigs. The men did the same against other boulders, and lighting a huge fire opposite the mouth of my ground-nest, I sat cross-legged on the bed to eat my supper; my face scorching, and my back freezing. Rice, boiled with a few ounces of greasy dindon aux truffes was now my daily dinner, with chili-vinegar and tea, and I used to relish it keenly: this finished, I smoked a cigar, and wrote up my journal (in short intervals between warming myself) by the light of the fire; took observations by means of a dark-lantern; and when all this was accomplished, I went to roost.
December 5.—On looking out this morning, it was with a feeling of awe that I gazed at the stupendous ice-crowned precipices that shot up to the summit of Nango, their flanks spotted white at the places whence the gigantic masses with which I was surrounded had fallen; thence my eye wandered down their black faces to the slope of débris at the bottom, thus tracing the course which had probably been taken by that rock under whose shelter I had passed the previous night.
Meepo, the Lepcha sent by the rajah, had snared a couple of beautiful pheasants, one of which I skinned, and ate for breakfast; it is a small bird, common above 12,000 feet, but very wild; the male has two to five spurs on each of its legs, according to its age; the general colour is greenish, with a broad scarlet patch surrounding the eye; the Nepalese name is “Khalidge.” The crop was distended with juniper berries, of which the flesh tasted strongly, and it was the very hardest, toughest bird I ever did eat.
We descended at first through rhododendron and juniper, then through black silver-fir (Abies Webbiana), and below that, near the river, we came to the Himalayan larch; a tree quite unknown, except from a notice in the journals of Mr. Griffith, who found it in Bhotan. It is a small tree, twenty to forty feet high, perfectly similar in general characters to a European larch, but with larger cones, which are erect upon the very long, pensile, whip-like branches; its leaves,—now red—were falling, and covering the rocky ground on which it grew, scattered amongst other trees. It is called “Saar” by the Lepchas and Cis-himalayan Tibetans, and “Boarga-sella” by the Nepalese, who say it is found as far west as the heads of the Cosi river: it does not inhabit Central or West Nepal, nor the North-west Himalaya. The distribution of the Himalayan pines is very remarkable. The Deodar has not been seen east of Nepal, nor the Pinus Gerardiana, Cupressus torulosa, or Juniperus communis. On the other hand, Podocarpus is confined to the east of Katmandoo. Abies Brunoniana does not occur west of the Gogra, nor the larch west of the Cosi, nor funereal cypress (an introduced plant, however) west of the Teesta (in Sikkim). Of the twelve[83] Sikkim and Bhotan Coniferæ (including yew, junipers, and Podocarpus) eight are common to the North-west Himalaya (west of Nepal), and four[84] are not: of the thirteen natives of the north-west provinces, again, only five[85] are not found in Sikkim, and I have given their names below, because they show how European the absent ones are, either specifically or in affinity. I have stated that the Deodar is possibly a variety of the Cedar of Lebanon. This is now a prevalent opinion, which is strengthened by the fact that so many more Himalayan plants are now ascertained to be European than had been supposed before they were compared with European specimens; such are the yew, Juniperus communis, Berberis vulgaris, Quercus Ballota, Populus alba and Euphratica, etc. The cones of the Deodar are identical with those of the Cedar of Lebanon: the Deodar has, generally longer and more pale bluish leaves and weeping branches,[86] but these characters seem to be unusually developed in our gardens; for several gentlemen, well acquainted with the Deodar at Simla, when asked to point it out in the Kew Gardens, have indicated the Cedar of Lebanon, and when shown the Deodar, declare that they never saw that plant in the Himalaya!
[83] Juniper, 3; yew, Abies Webbiana, Brunoniana, and Smithiana: Larch, Pinus excelsa, and longifolia, and Podocarpus neriifolia.
[84] Larch, Cupressus funebris, Podocarpus neriifolia, Abies Brunoniana.
[85] A juniper (the European communis), Deodar (possibly only a variety of the Cedar of Lebanon and of Mount Atlas), Pinus Gerardiana, P. excelsa, and Crupressus torulosa.
[86] Since writing the above, I have seen, in the magnificent Pinetum at Dropmore, noble cedars, with the length and hue of leaf, and the pensile branches of the Deodar, and far more beautiful than that is, and as unlike the common Lebanon Cedar as possible. When it is considered from how very few wild trees (and these said to be exactly alike) the many dissimilar varieties of the C. Libani have been derived; the probability of this, the Cedar of Algiers, and of the Himalayas (Deodar) being all forms of one species, is greatly increased. We cannot presume to judge from the few cedars which still remain, what the habit and appearance of the tree may have been, when it covered the slopes of Libanus, and seeing how very variable Coniferæ are in habit, we may assume that its surviving specimens give us no information on this head. Should all three prove one, it will materially enlarge our ideas of the distribution and variation of species. The botanist will insist that the typical form of cedar is that which retains its characters best over the greatest area, namely, the Deodar; in which case the prejudice of the ignorant, and the preconceived ideas of the naturalist, must yield to the fact that the old familiar Cedar of Lebanon is an unusual variety of the Himalayan Deodar.
At the bottom of the valley we turned up the stream, and passing the Tassichooding convents[87] and temple, crossed the river—which was a furious torrent, about twelve yards wide—to the village of Kambachen, on a flat terrace a few feet above the stream. There were about a dozen houses of wood, plastered with mud and dung, scattered over a grassy plain of a few acres, fenced in, as were also a few fields, with stone dykes. The only cultivation consists of radishes, potatos, and barley: no wheat is grown, the climate being said to be too cold for it, by which is probably meant that it is foggy,—the elevation (11,380 feet) being 2000 feet less than that of Yangma village, and the temperature therefore 6° to 7° warmer; but of all the mountain gorges I have ever visited, this is by far the wildest, grandest, and most gloomy; and that man should hybernate here is indeed extraordinary, for there is no route up the valley, and all communication with Lelyp,[88] two marches down the river, is cut off in winter, when the houses are buried in snow, and drifts fifteen feet deep are said to be common. Standing on the little flat of Kambachen, precipices, with inaccessible patches of pine wood, appeared to the west, towering over head; while across the narrow valley wilder and less wooded crags rose in broken ridges to the glaciers of Nango. Up the valley, the view was cut off by bluff cliffs; whilst down it, the scene was most remarkable: enormous black, round-backed moraines, rose, tier above tier, from a flat lake-bed, apparently hemming in the river between the lofty precipices on the east flank of the valley. These had all been deposited at the mouth of a lateral valley, opening just below the village, and descending from Junnoo, a mountain of 25,312 feet elevation, and one of the grandest of the Kinchinjunga group, whose top—though only five miles distant in a straight line—rises 13,932 feet[89] above the village. Few facts show more decidedly the extraordinary steepness and depth of the Kambachen valley near the village, which, though nearly 11,400 feet above the sea, lies between two mountains only eight miles apart, the one 25,312 feet high, the other (Nango), 19,000 feet.
[87] These were built by the Sikkim people, when the eastern valleys of Nepal belonged to the Sikkim rajah.
[88] Which I passed, on the Tambur, on the 21st Nov. See page 204.
[89] his is one of the most sudden slopes in this part of the Himalaya, the angle between the top of Junnoo and Kambachen being 2,786 feet per mile, or 1 in 1·8. The slope from the top of Mont Blanc to the Chamouni valley is 2,464 feet per mile, or 1 in 2·1. That from Monte Rosa top to Macugnaga greatly exceeds either.
The villagers received us very kindly, and furnished us with a guide for the Choonjerma pass, leading to the Yalloong valley, the most easterly in Nepal; but he recommended our not attempting any part of the ascent till the morrow, as it was past 1 p.m., and we should find no camping-ground for half the way up. The villagers gave us the leg of a musk deer, and some red potatos, about as big as walnuts—all they could spare from their winter-stock. With this scanty addition to our stores we started down the valley, for a few miles alternately along flat lake-beds and over moraines, till we crossed the stream from the lateral valley, and ascending a little, camped on its bank, at 11,400 feet elevation.
In the afternoon I botanized amongst the moraines, which were very numerous, and had been thrown down at right-angles to the main valley, which latter being here very narrow, and bounded by lofty precipices, must have stopped the parent glaciers, and effected the heaping of some of these moraines to at least 1000 feet above the river. The general features were modifications of those seen in the Yangma valley, but contracted into a much smaller space.
The moraines were all accumulated in a sort of delta, through which the lateral river debouched into the Kambachen, and were all deposited more or less parallel to the course of the lateral valley, but curving outwards from its mouth. The village-flat, or terrace, continued level to the first moraine, which had been thrown down on the upper or north side of the lateral valley, on whose and curving steep flanks it abutted, and curving outwards seemed to encircle the village-flat on the south and west; where it dipped into the river. This was crossed at the height of about 100 feet, by a stony path, leading to the bed of the rapid torrent flowing through shingle and boulders, beyond which was another moraine, 250 feet high, and parallel to it a third gigantic one.
Ascending the great moraine at a place where it overhung the main river, I had a good coup-a’œil of the whole. The view south-east up the glacial valley—(represented in the accompanying cut)—to the snowy peaks south of Junnoo, was particularly grand, and most interesting from the precision with which one great distant existing glacier was marked by two waving parallel lines of lateral moraines, which formed, as it were, a vast raised gutter, or channel, ascending from perhaps 16,000 feet elevation, till it was hidden behind a spur in the valley. With a telescope I could descry many similar smaller glaciers, with huge accumulations of shingle at their terminations; but this great one was beautifully seen by the naked eye, and formed a very curious feature in the landscape.
Between the moraines, near my tent, the soil was perfectly level, and consisted of little lake-beds strewn with gigantic boulders, and covered with hard turf of grass and sedge, and little bushes of dwarf rhododendron and prostrate juniper, as trim as if they had been clipped. Altogether these formed the most picturesque little nooks it was possible to conceive; and they exhibited the withered remains of so many kinds of primrose, gentian, anemone, potentilla, orchis, saxifrage, parnassia, campanula, and pedicularis, that in summer they must be perfect gardens of wild flowers. Around each plot of a few acres was the grand ice-transported girdle of stupendous rocks, many from 50 to 100 feet long, crested with black tabular-branched silver firs, conical deep green tree-junipers, and feathery larches; whilst amongst the blocks grew a profusion of round masses of evergreen rhododendron bushes. Beyond were stupendous frowning cliffs, beneath which the river roared like thunder; and looking up the glacial valley, the setting sun was bathing the expanse of snow in the most delicate changing tints, pink, amber, and gold.
The boulders forming the moraine were so enormous and angular, that I had great difficulty in ascending it. I saw some pheasants feeding on the black berries of the juniper, but where the large rhododendrons grew amongst the rocks I found it impossible to penetrate. The largest of the moraines is piled to upwards of 1000 feet against the south flank of the lateral valley, and stretched far up it beyond my camp, which was in a grove of silver firs. A large flock of sheep and goats, laden with salt, overtook us here on their route from Wallanchoon to Yalloong. The sheep I observed to feed on the Rhododendron Thomsoni and campylocarpum. On the roots of one of the latter species a parasitical Broom-rape (Orobanche) grew abundantly; and about the moraines were more mosses, lichens, etc., than I have elsewhere seen in the loftier Himalaya, encouraged no doubt by the dampness of this grand mountain gorge, which is so hemmed in that the sun never reaches it until four or five hours after it has gilded the overhanging peaks.
December 5.—The morning was bright and clear, and we left early for the Choonjerma pass. I had hoped the route would be up the magnificent glacier-girdled valley in which we had encamped; but it lay up another, considerably south of it, and to which we crossed, ascending the rocky moraine, in the clefts of which grew abundance of a common Scotch fern, Cryptogramma crispa!
The clouds early commenced gathering, and it was curious to watch their rapid formation in coalescing streaks, which became first cirrhi, and then stratus, being apparently continually added to from below by the moisture-bringing southerly wind. Ascending a lofty spur, 1000 feet above the valley, against which the moraine was banked, I found it to be a distinct anticlinal axis. The pass, bearing north-west, and the valley we had descended on the previous day, rose immediately over the curved strata of quartz, topped by the glacier-crowned mountain of Nango, with four glaciers descending from its perpetual snows. The stupendous cliffs on its flanks, under which I had camped on the previous night, were very grand, but not more so than those which dipped into the chasm of the Kambachen below. Looking up the valley of the latter, was another wilderness of ice full of enormous moraines, round the bases of which the river wound.
Ascending, we reached an open grassy valley, and overtook the Tibetans who had preceded us, and who had halted here to feed their sheep. A good-looking girl of the party came to ask me for medicine for her husband’s eyes, which had suffered from snow-blindness: she brought me a present of snuff, and carried a little child, stark naked, yet warm from the powerful rays of the sun, at nearly 14,000 feet elevation, in December! I prescribed for the man, and gave the mother a bright farthing to hang round the child’s neck, which delighted the party. My watch was only wondered at; but a little spring measuring-tape that rolled itself up, struck them dumb, and when I threw it on the ground with the tape out, the mother shrieked and ran away, while the little savage howled after her.
Above, the path up the ascent was blocked with snowbeds, and for several miles we alternately scrambled among rocks and over slippery slopes, to the top of the first ridge, there being two to cross. The first consisted of a ridge of rocks running east and west from a superb sweep of snowy mountains to the north-west, which presented a chaotic scene of blue glacial ice and white snow, through which splintered rocks and beetling crags thrust their black heads. The view into the Kambachen gorge was magnificent, though it did not reveal the very bottom of the valley and its moraines: the black precipices of its opposite flank seemed to rise to the glaciers of Nango, fore-shortened into snow-capped precipices 5000 feet high, amongst which lay the Kambachen pass, bearing north-west by north. Lower down the valley, appeared a broad flat, called Jubla, a halting-place one stage below the village of Kambachen, on the road to Lelyp on the Tambur: it must be a remarkable geological as well as natural feature, for it appeared to jut abruptly and quite horizontally from the black cliffs of the valley.
Looking north, the conical head of Junnoo was just scattering the mists from its snowy shoulders, and standing forth to view, the most magnificent spectacle I ever beheld. It was quite close to me, bearing north-east by east, and subtending an angle of 12° 23, and is much the steepest and most conical of all the peaks of these regions. From whichever side it is viewed, it rises 9000 feet above the general mountain mass of 16,000 feet elevation, towering like a blunt cone, with a short saddle on one side, that dips in a steep cliff: it appeared as if uniformly snowed, from its rocks above 20,000 feet (like those of Kinchinjunga) being of white granite, and not contrasting with the snow. Whether the top is stratified or not, I cannot tell, but waving parallel lines are very conspicuous near it, as shown in the accompanying view.[90]
[90] The appearance of Mont Cervin, from the Riffelberg, much reminded me of that of Junnoo, from the Choonjerma pass, the former bearing the same relation to Monte Rosa that the latter does to Kinchinjunga. Junnoo, though incomparably the more stupendous mass, not only rising 10,000 feat higher above the sea, but towering 4000 feet higher above the ridge on which it is supported, is not nearly so remarkable in outline, so sharp, or so peaked as is Mount Cervin: it is a very much grander, but far less picturesque object. The whiteness of the sides of Junnoo adds also greatly to its apparent altitude; while the strong relief in which the black cliffs of Mont Cervin protrude through its snowy mantle greatly diminish both its apparent height and distance.
Looking south as evening drew on, another wonderful spectacle presented itself, similar to that which I described at Sakkiazung, but displayed here on an inconceivably grander scale, with all the effects exaggerated. I saw a sea of mist floating 3000 feet beneath me, just below the upper level of the black pines; the magnificent spurs of the snowy range which I had crossed rising out of it in rugged grandeur as promontories and peninsulas, between which the misty ocean seemed to finger up like the fiords of Norway, or the salt-water lochs of the west of Scotland; whilst islets tailed off from the promontories, rising here and there out of the deceptive elements. I was so high above this mist, that it had not the billowy appearance I saw before, but was a calm unruffled ocean, boundless to the south and west, where the horizon over-arched it. A little to the north of west I discerned the most lofty group of mountains in Nepal[91] (mentioned at p. 185), beyond Kinchinjurga, which I believe are on the west flank of the great valley through which the Arun river enters Nepal from Tibet: they were very distant, and subtended so small an angle, that I could not measure them with the sextant and artificial horizon their height, judging from the quantity of snow, must be prodigious.
[91] Called Tsungau by the Bhoteeas. Junnoo is called Kumbo~Kurma by the Hill-men of Nepal.
From 4 to 5 p.m. the temperature was 24°, with a very cold wind; the elevation by the barometer was 15,260 feet, and the dew-point 10.5°, giving the humidity 0·610, and the amount of vapour 1·09 grains in a cubic foot of air; the same elements at Calcutta, at the same hour, being thermometer 66·5°, dew-point 60·5°, humidity 0·840, and weight of vapour 5·9 grains.
I waited for an hour, examining the rocks about the pass, till the coolies should come up, but saw nothing worthy of remark, the natural history and geology being identical with those of Kambachen pass: I then bade adieu to the sublime and majestic peak of Junnoo. Thence we continued at nearly the same level for about four miles, dipping into the broad head of a snowy valley, and ascending to the second pass, which lay to the south-east.
On the left I passed a very curious isolated pillar of rock, amongst the wild crags to the north-east, whose bases we skirted: it resembles the Capuchin on the shoulder of Mont Blanc, as seen from the Jardin. Evening overtook us while still on the snow near the last ascent. As the sun declined, the snow at our feet reflected the most exquisitely delicate peach-bloom hue; and looking west from the top of the pass, the scenery was gorgeous beyond description, for the sun was just plunging into a sea of mist, amongst some cirrhi and stratus, all in a blaze of the ruddiest coppery hue. As it sank, the Nepal, peaks to the right assumed more definite, darker, and gigantic forms, and floods of light shot across the misty ocean, bathing the landscape around me in the most wonderful and indescribable changing tints. As the luminary was vanishing, the whole horizon glowed like copper run from a smelting furnace, and when it had quite disappeared, the little inequalities of the ragged edges of the mist were lighted up and shone like a row of volcanos in the far distance. I have never before or since seen anything, which for sublimity, beauty, and marvellous effects, could compare with what I gazed on that evening from Choonjerma pass. In some of Turner’s pictures I have recognized similar effects, caught and fixed by a marvellous effort of genius; such are the fleeting hues over the ice, in his “Whalers,” and the ruddy fire in his “Wind, Steam, and Rain,” which one almost fears to touch. Dissolving views give some idea of the magic creation and dispersion of the effects, but any combination of science and art can no more recall the scene, than it can the feelings of awe that crept over me, during the hour I spent in solitude amongst these stupendous mountains.
The moon guided us on our descent, which was to the south, obliquely into the Yalloong valley. I was very uneasy about the coolies, who were far behind, and some of them had been frost-bitten in crossing the Kambachen pass. Still I thought the best thing was to push on, and light large fires at the first juniper we should reach. The change, on passing from off the snow to the dark earth and rock, was so bewildering, that I had great difficulty in picking my way. Suddenly we came on a flat with a small tarn, whose waters gleamed illusively in the pale moonlight: the opposite flanks of the valley were so well reflected on its gloomy surface, that we were at once brought to a stand-still on its banks: it looked like a chasm, and whether to jump across it, or go down it, or along it, was the question, so deceptive was the spectral landscape. Its true nature was, however, soon discovered, and we proceeded round it, descending. Of course there was no path, and after some perplexity amongst rocks and ravines, we reached the upper limit of wood, and halted by some bleached juniper-trees, which were soon converted into blazing fires.
I wandered away from my party to listen for the voices of the men who had lingered behind, about whom I was still more anxious, from the very great difficulty they would encounter if, as we did, they should get off the path. The moon was shining clearly in the black heavens; and its bright light, with the pale glare of the surrounding snow, obscured the milky way, and all the smaller stars; whilst the planets appeared to glow with broader orbs than elsewhere, and the great stars flashed steadily and periodically.
Deep black chasms seemed to yawn below, and cliffs rose on all sides, except down the valley, where looking across the Yalloong river, a steep range of mountains rose, seamed with torrents that were just visible like threads of silver coursing down broad landslips. It was a dead calm, and nothing broke the awful silence but the low hoarse murmur of many torrents, whose mingled voices rose and fell as if with the pulsations of the atmosphere; the undulations of which appeared thus to be marked by the ear alone. Sometimes it was the faintest possible murmur, and then it rose swelling and filling the air with sound: the effect was that of being raised from the earth’s surface, and again lowered to it; or that of waters advancing and retiring. In such scenes and with such accompaniments, the mind wanders from the real to the ideal, the larger and brighter lamps of heaven lead us to imagine that we have risen from the surface of our globe and are floating through the regions of space, and that the ceaseless murmur of the waters is the Music of the Spheres.
Contemplation amid such soothing sounds and impressive scenes is very seductive, and withal very dangerous, for the temperature was at freezing-point, my feet and legs were wet through, and it was well that I was soon roused from my reveries by the monosyllabic exclamations of my coolies. They were quite knocked up, and came along grunting, and halting every minute to rest, by supporting their loads, still hanging to their backs, on their stout staves. I had still one bottle of brandy left, with which to splice the main brace. It had been repeatedly begged for in vain, and being no longer expected, was received with unfeigned joy. Fortunately with these people a little spirits goes a long way, and I kept half for future emergencies.
We camped at 13,290 feet, the air was calm and mild to the feeling, though the temperature fell to 22·75°. On the following morning we saw two musk-deer,[92] called “Kosturah” by the mountaineers. The musk, which hangs in a pouch near the navel of the male, is the well-known object of traffic with Bengal. This creature ranges between 8000 and 13,000 feet, on the Himalaya, often scenting the air for many hundred yards. It is a pretty grey animal, the size of a roebuck, and something resembling it, with coarse fur, short horns, and two projecting teeth from the upper jaw, said to be used in rooting up the aromatic herbs from which the Bhoteeas believe that it derives the odour of musk. This I much doubt, because the animal never frequents those very lofty regions where the herbs supposed to provide the scent are found, nor have I ever seen signs of any having been so rooted up. The Delphinium glaciale smells strongly and disagreeably of musk, but it is one of the most alpine plants in the world, growing at an elevation of 17,000 feet, far above the limits of the Kosturah. The female and young male are very good eating, much better than any Indian venison I ever tasted, being sweet and tender. Mr. Hodgson once kept a female alive, but it was very wild, and continued so as long as I knew it. Two of my Lepchas gave chase to these animals, and fired many arrows in vain after them: these people are fond of carrying a bow, but are very poor shots.
[92] There are two species of musk-deer in the Himalaya, besides the Tibetan kind, which appears identical with the Siberian animal originally described by Pallas.
We descended 3000 feet to the deep valley of the Yalloong river which runs west-by-south to the Tambur, from between Junnoo and Kubra: the path was very bad, over quartz, granite, and gneiss, which cut the shoes and feet severely. The bottom of the valley, which is elevated 10,450 feet, was filled with an immense accumulation of angular gravel and débris of the above rocks, forming on both sides of the river a terrace 400 feet above the stream, which flowed in a furious torrent. The path led over this deposit for a good many miles, and varied exceedingly in height, in some places being evidently increased by landslips, and at others apparently by moraines.
Chapter XII
Yalloong valley—Fiud Kanglanamo pass closed—Change route for the southward—Picrorhiza—View of Kubra—Rhododendron Falconeri—Yalloong river—Junction of gneiss and clay-slate—Cross Yalloong range—View—Descent—Yew—Vegetation—Misty weather—Tongdam village—Khabang—Tropical vegetation—Sidingbah Mountain—View of Kinchinjunga—Yangyading village—Slopes of hills, and courses of rivers—Khabili valley—Ghorkha Havildar’s bad conduct—Ascend Singalelah—Plague of ticks—Short commons—Cross Islumbo pass—Boundary of Sikkim—Kulhait valley—Lingeham—Reception by Kajee—Hear of Dr. Campbell’s going to meet Rajah—Views in valley—Leave for Teesta river—Tipsy Kajee—Hospitality—Murwa beer—Temples—Acorus Calamus—Long Mendong—Burning of dead—Superstitions—Cross Great Rungeet—Boulders, origin of—Purchase of a dog—Marshes—Lamas—Dismiss Ghorkhas—Bhoteea house—Murwa beer.
On arriving at the bottom we found a party who were travelling with sheep laden with salt; they told us that the Yalloong village, which lay up the valley on the route to the Kanglanamo pass (leading over the south shoulder of Kubra into Sikkim) was deserted, the inhabitants having retired after the October fall of snow to Yankutang, two marches down; also that the Kanglanamo pass was impracticable, being always blocked up by the October fall. I was, therefore, reluctantly obliged to abandon the plan of pursuing that route to Sikkim, and to go south, following the west flank of Singalelah to the first of the many passes over it which I might find open.
These people were very civil, and gave me a handful of the root of one of the many bitter herbs called in Bengal “Teeta,” and used as a febrifuge: the present was that of Picrorhiza, a plant allied to Speedwell, which grows at from 12,000 to 15,000 feet elevation, and is a powerful bitter, called “Hoonling” by the Tibetans. They had with them above 100 sheep, of a tall, long-legged, Roman-nosed breed. Each carried upwards of forty pounds of salt, done up in two leather bags, slung on either side, and secured by a band going over the chest, and another round the loins, so that they cannot slip off, when going up or down hill. These sheep are very tame, patient creatures, travelling twelve miles a day with great ease, and being indifferent to rocky or steep ground.
Looking east I had a splendid view of the broad snowy mass of Kubra, blocking up, as it were, the head of the valley with a white screen. Descending to about 10,000 feet, the Abies Brunoniana appeared, with fine trees of Rhododendron Falconeri forty feet high, and with leaves nineteen inches long! while the upper part of the valley was full of Abies Webbiana.
At the elevation of 9000 feet, we crossed to the east bank, and passed the junction of the gneiss and mica slate: the latter crossed the river, striking north-west, and the stream cut a dark chasm-like channel through it, foaming and dashing the spray over the splintered ridges, and the broad water-worn hog-backed masses that projected from its bed. Immense veins of granite permeated the rocks, which were crumpled in the strangest manner: isolated angular blocks of schist had been taken up by the granite in a fluid state, and remained imbedded in it.
The road made great ascents to avoid landslips, and to surmount the enormous piles of débris which encumber this valley more than any other. We encamped at 10,050 feet, on a little flat 1000 feet above the bed of the river, and on its east flank. A Hydrangea was the common small wood, but Abies Webbiana formed the forest, with great Rhododendrons. The weather was foggy, whence I judged that we were in the sea of mist I saw beneath me from the passes; the temperature, considering the elevation, was mild, 37° and 38°, which was partly due to the evolution of heat that accompanies the condensation of these vapours, the atmosphere being loaded with moisture. The thermometer fell to 28° during the night, and in the morning the ground was thickly covered with hoar-frost.
December 7.—We ascended the Yalloong ridge to a saddle 11,000 feet elevation, whence the road dips south to the gloomy gorges of the eastern feeders of the Tambur. Here we bade adieu to the grand alpine scenery, and for several days our course lay in Nepal in a southerly direction, parallel to Singalelah, and crossing every spur and river sent off by that mighty range. The latter flow towards the Tambur, and their beds, for forty or fifty miles are elevated about 3000 or 4000 feet. Few of the spurs are ascended above 5000 feet, but all of them rise to 12,000 or 14,000 feet to the westward, where they join the Singalelah range.
I clambered to the top of a lofty hummock, through a dense thicket of interwoven Rhododendron bushes, the clayey soil under which was slippery from the quantity of dead leaves. I had hoped for a view of the top of Kinchinjunga, which bore north-east, but it was enveloped in clouds, as were all the snows in that direction; to the north-west, however, I obtained bearings of the principal peaks, etc., of the Yangma and Kambachen valleys. To the south and south-east, lofty, rugged and pine-clad mountains rose in confused masses, and white sheets of mist came driving up, clinging to the mountain-tops, and shrouding the landscape with extreme rapidity. The remarkable mountain of Sidingbah bore south-south-east, raising its rounded head above the clouds. I could, however, procure no other good bearing.
The descent from the Yalloong ridge to the Khabili feeders of the Tambur was very steep, and in some places almost precipitous, first through dense woods of silver fir, with Rhod. Falconeri and Hodgsoni, then through Abies Brunoniana, with yew (now covered with red berries) to the region of Magnolias and Rhod. arboreum and barbatum. One bush of the former was in flower, making a gorgeous show. Here also appeared the great oak with lamellated acorns, which I had not seen in the drier valleys to the westward; with many other Dorjiling trees and shrubs. A heavy mist clung to the rank luxuriant foliage, tantalizing from its obscuring all the view. Mica schist replaced the gneiss, and a thick slippery stratum of clay rendered it very difficult to keep one’s footing. After so many days of bright sunshine and dry weather, I found this quiet, damp, foggy atmosphere to have a most depressing effect: there was little to interest in the meteorology, the atmospheric fluctuations being far too small; geographical discovery was at an end, and we groped our way along devious paths in wooded valleys, or ascended spurs and ridges, always clouded before noon, and clothed with heavy forest.
At 6000 feet we emerged from the mist, and found ourselves clambering down a deep gully, hemmed in by frightful rocky steeps, which exposed a fine and tolerably continuous section of schistose rocks, striking north-west, and dipping north-east, at a very high angle.
At the bottom three furious torrents met: we descended the course of one of them, over slanting precipices, or trees lashed to the rocks, and after a most winding course our path conducted us to the village of Tarbu, high above a feeder of the Khabili river, which flows west, joining the Tambur three days’ march lower down. Having no food, we had made a very long and difficult march to this place, but finding none here, proceeded on to Tonghem village on the Khabili, descending through thickets of Rhod. arboreum to the elevation of 5,560.
This village, or spur, called “Tonghem” by the Limboos, and “Yankutang” by the Bhoteeas, is the winter resort of the inhabitants of the upper Yalloong valley: they received us very kindly, sold us two fowls, and rice enough to last for one or two days, which was all they could spare, and gave me a good deal of information. I found that the Kanglanamo pass had been disused since the Nepal war, that it was very lofty, and always closed in October.
The night was fine, clear, and warm, but the radiation so powerful that the grass was coated with ice the following morning, though the thermometer did not fall below 33°. The next day the sun rose with great power, and the vegetation reeked and steamed with the heat. Crossing the river, we first made a considerable descent, and then ascended a ridge to 5,750 feet, through a thick jungle of Camellia, Eurya, and small oak: from the top I obtained bearings of Yalloong and Choonjerma pass, and had also glimpses of the Kinchin range through a tantalizing jungle; after which a very winding and fatiguing up-and-down march southwards brought us to the village of Khabang, in the magnificent valley of the Tawa, about 800 feet above the river, and 5,500 feet above the sea.
I halted here for a day, to refresh the people, and if possible to obtain some food. I hoped, too, to find a pass into Sikkim, east over Singalelah, but was disappointed: if there had ever been one, it had been closed since the Nepal war; and there was none, for several marches further south, which would conduct us to the Iwa branch of the Khabili.
Khabang is a village of Geroongs, or shepherds, who pasture their flocks on the hills and higher valleys during summer, and bring them down to this elevation in winter: the ground was consequently infested with a tick, equal in size to that so common in the bushes, and quite as troublesome, but of a different species.
The temperature rose to 72°, and the black-bulb thermometer to 140°. Magnolias and various almost tropical trees were common, and the herbaceous vegetation was that of low elevations. Large sugar-cane (Saccharum), palm (Wallichia), and wild plantains grew near the river, and Rhod. arboreum was very common on dry slopes of mica-slate rocks, with the gorgeous and sweet-scented Luculia gratissima.
Up the valley of the Tawa the view was very grand of a magnificent rocky mountain called Sidingbah, bearing south-east by south, on a spur of the Singalelah range that runs westerly, and forms the south flank of the Tawa, and the north of the Khabili valleys. This mountain is fully 12,000 feet high, crested with rock and ragged black forest, which, on the north flank, extends to its base: to the eastward, the bare ridges of Singalelah were patched with snow, below which they too were clothed with black pines.
From the opposite side of the Tawa to Khabang (alt. 6,020 feet), I was, during our march southwards, most fortunate in obtaining a splendid view of Kinchinjunga (bearing north-east by north), with its associates, rising over the dark mass of Singalelah, its flanks showing like tier above tier of green glaciers: its distance was fully twenty-five miles, and as only about 7000 feet or 8000 feet from its summit were visible, and Kubra was foreshortened against it, its appearance was not grand; added to which, its top was round and hummocky, not broken into peaks, as when seen from the south and east. Villages and cultivation became more frequent as we proceeded southward, and our daily marches were up ridges, and down into deep valleys, with feeders from the flanks of Sidingbah to the Tambur. We passed through the village of Tchonboong, and camped at Yangyading (4,100 feet), sighted Yamroop, a large village and military post to the west of our route, crossed the Pangwa river, and reached the valley of the Khabili. During this part of the journey, I did not once see the Tambur river, though I was day after day marching only seven to ten miles distant from it, so uneven is the country. The mountains around Taptiatok, Mywa Guola, and Chingtam, were pointed out to me, but they presented no recognizable feature.
I often looked for some slope, or strike of the slopes of the spurs, in any one valley, or that should prevail through several, but could seldom trace any, except on one or two occasions, at low elevations. Looking here across the valleys, there was a tendency in the gentle slopes of the spurs to have plane faces dipping north-east, and to be bounded by a line of cliffs striking north-west, and facing the south-east. In such arrangements, the upheaved cliffs may be supposed to represent parallel lines of faults, dislocation, or rupture, but I could never trace any secondary valleys at right angles to these. There is no such uniformity of strike as to give to the rivers a zig-zag course of any regularity, or one having any apparent dependence on a prevailing arrangement of the rocks; for, though the strike of the chlorite and clay-slate at elevations below 6000 feet along its course, is certainly north-west, with a dip to north-east, the flexures of the river, as projected on the map, deviate very widely from these directions.
The valley of the Khabili is very grand, broad, open, and intersected by many streams and cultivated spurs: the road from Yamroop to Sikkim, once well frequented, runs up its north flank, and though it was long closed we determined to follow and clear it.
On the 11th of December we camped near the village of Sablakoo (4,680 feet), and procured five days’ food, to last us as far as the first Sikkim village. Thence we proceeded eastward up the valley, but descending to the Iwa, an affluent of the Khabili, through a tropical vegetation of Pinus longifolia, Phyllanthus Emblica, dwarf date-palm, etc.
Gneiss was here the prevailing rock, uniformly dipping north-east 20°, and striking north-west. The same rock no doubt forms the mass Sidingbah, which reared its head 8000 feet above the Iwa river, by whose bed we camped at 3,780 feet. Sand-flies abounded, and were most troublesome: troops of large monkeys were skipping about, and the whole scene was thoroughly tropical; still, the thermometer fell to 38° in the night, with heavy dew.
Though we passed numerous villages, I found unusual difficulty in getting provision, and received none of the presents so uniformly brought by the villagers to a stranger. I was not long in discovering, to my great mortification, that these were appropriated by the Ghorkha Havildar, who seemed to have profited by our many days of short allowance, and diverted the current of hospitality from me to himself. His coolies I saw groaning under heavy burdens, when those of my people were light; and the truth only came out when he had the impudence to attempt to impose a part of his coolies’ loads on mine, to enable the former to carry more food, whilst he was pretending that he used every exertion to procure me a scanty supply of rice with my limited stock of money. I had treated this man and his soldiers with the utmost kindness, even nursing them and clothing them from my own stock of flannels, when sick and shivering amongst the snows. Though a high caste Hindoo, and one who assumed Brahmin rank, he had, I found, no objection to eat forbidden things in secret; and now that we were travelling amongst Hindoos, his caste obtained him everything, while money alone availed me. I took him roundly to task for his treachery, which caused him secretly to throw away a leg of mutton he had concealed; I also threatened to expose the humbug of his pretension to caste, but it was then too late to procure more food. Having hitherto much liked this man, and fully trusted him, I was greatly pained by his conduct.
We proceeded east for three days, up the valley, through gloomy forests of tropical trees below 5000 feet; and ascended to oaks and magnolias at 6000 feet. The path was soon obstructed, and we had to tear and cut our way, from 6000 to 10,000 feet, which took two days’ very hard work. Ticks swarmed in the small bamboo jungle, and my body was covered with these loathsome insects, which got into my bed and hair, and even attached themselves to my eyelids during the night, when the constant annoyance and irritation completely banished sleep. In the daytime they penetrated my trousers, piercing to my body in many places, so that I repeatedly took off as many as twelve at one time. It is indeed marvellous how so large an insect can painlessly insert a stout barbed proboscis, which requires great force to extract it, and causes severe smarting in the operation. What the ticks feed upon in these humid forests is a perfect mystery to me, for from 6000 to 9000 feet they literally swarmed, where there was neither path nor animal life. They were, however, more tolerable than a commoner species of parasite, which I found it impossible to escape from, all classes of mountaineers being infested with it.
On the 14th, after an arduous ascent through the pathless jungle, we camped at 9,300 feet on a narrow spur, in a dense forest, amongst immense loose blocks of gneiss. The weather was foggy and rainy, and the wind cold. I ate the last supply of animal food, a miserable starved pullet, with rice and Chili vinegar; my tea, sugar, and all other superfluities having been long before exhausted.
On the following morning, we crossed the Islumbo pass over Singalelah into Sikkim, the elevation being 11,000 feet. Above our camp the trees were few and stunted, and we quickly emerged from the forest on a rocky and grassy ridge, covered with withered Saxifrages, Umbelliferæ, Parnassia, Hypericum, etc. There were no pines on either side of the pass; a very remarkable peculiarity of the damp mountains of Sikkim, which I have elsewhere had occasion to notice: we had left Pinus longifolia (a far from common tree in these valleys) at 3000 feet in the Tawa three days before, and ascended to 11,000 feet without passing a coniferous tree of any kind, except a few yews, at 9000 feet, covered with red berries.
The top of the pass was broad, grassy, and bushy with dwarf Bamboo, Rose, and Berberry, in great abundance, covered with mosses and lichens: it had been raining hard all the morning, and the vegetation was coated with ice: a dense fog obscured everything, and a violent south-east wind blew over the pass in our teeth. I collected some very curious and beautiful mosses, putting these frozen treasures into my box, in the form of exquisitely beautiful glass ornaments, or mosses frosted with silver.
A few stones marked the boundary between Nepal and Sikkim, where I halted for half an hour, and hung up my instruments: the temperature was 32°.
We descended rapidly, proceeding eastward down the broad valley of the Kulhait river, an affluent of the Great Rungeet; and as it had begun to sleet and snow hard, we continued until we reached 6,400 feet before camping.
On the following day we proceeded down the valley, and reached habitations at 4000 feet: passing many villages and much cultivation, we crossed the river, and ascended by 7 p.m., to the village of Lingcham, just below the convent of Changachelling, very tired and hungry. Bad weather had set in, and it was pitch dark and raining hard when we arrived; but the Kajee, or head man, had sent out a party with torches to conduct us, and he gave us a most hospitable reception, honoured us with a salute of musketry, and brought abundance of milk, eggs, fowls, plantains, and Murwa beer. Plenty of news was awaiting me here, and a messenger with letters was three marches further north, at Yoksun, waiting my expected return over the Kanglanamo pass. Dr. Campbell, I was told, had left Dorjiling; and was en route to meet the Rajah at Bhomsong on the Teesta river, where no European had ever yet been; and as the Sikkim authorities had for sixteen years steadily rejected every overture for a friendly interview, and even refused to allow the agent of the Governor-General to enter their dominions, it was evident that grave doings were pending. I knew that Dr. Campbell had long used every exertion to bring the Sikkim Rajah to a friendly conference, without having to force his way into the country for the purpose, but in vain. It will hardly be believed that though this chief’s dominions were redeemed by us from the Nepalese and given back to him; though we had bound ourselves by a treaty to support him on his throne, and to defend him against the Nepalese on the west, the Bhutan people on the east, and the Tibetans on the north; and though the terms of the treaty stipulated for free intercourse, mutual protection, and friendship; the Sikkim authorities had hitherto been allowed to obstruct all intercourse, and in every way to treat the Governor-General’s agent and the East India Company with contempt. An affectation of timidity, mistrust, and ignorance was assumed for the purpose of deception, and as a cloak for every insult and resistance to the terms of our treaty, and it was quoted by the Government in answer to every remonstrance on the part of their resident agent at Dorjiling.
On the following morning the Kajee waited on me with a magnificent present of a calf, a kid, fowls, eggs, rice, oranges, plantains, egg-apples, Indian corn, yams, onions, tomatos, parsley, fennel, turmeric, rancid butter, milk, and, lastly, a coolie-load of fermenting millet-seeds, wherewith to make the favourite Murwa beer. In the evening two lads arrived from Dorjiling, who had been sent a week beforehand by my kind and thoughtful friend, Mr. Hodgson, with provisions and money.
The valley of the Kulhait is one o£ the finest in Sikkim, and it is accordingly the site of two of the oldest and richest conventual establishments. Its length is sixteen miles, from the Islumbo pass to the Great Rungeet, for ten of which it is inhabited, the villages being invariably on long meridional spurs that project north and south from either flank; they are about 2000 feet above the river, and from 4,500 to 5000 feet above the sea. Except where these spurs project, the flanks of the valley are very steep, the mountains rising to 7000 or 8000 feet.
Looking from any spur, up or down the valley, five or six others might be seen on each side of the river, at very nearly the same average level, all presenting great uniformity of contour, namely, a gentle slope towards the centre of the valley, and then an abrupt descent to the river. They were about a quarter of a mile broad at the widest, and often narrower, and a mile or so long; some parts of their surfaces and sides were quite flat, and occasionally occupied by marshes or ponds. Cultivation is almost confined to these spurs, and is carried on both on their summits and steep flanks; between every two is a very steep gulley and water-course. The timber has long since been either wholly or partially cleared from the tops, but, to a great extent, still clothes their flanks and the intervening gorges. I have been particular in describing these spurs, because it is impossible to survey them without ascribing their comparative uniformity of level to the action of water. Similar ones are characteristic features of the valleys of Sikkim between 2000 and 8000 feet, and are rendered conspicuous by being always sites for villages and cultivation: the soil is a vegetable mould, over a deep stratum of red clay.
I am far from supposing that any geologically recent action of the sea has levelled these spurs; but as the great chain of the Himalaya has risen from the ocean, and as every part of it has been subjected to sea-action, it is quite conceivable that intervals of rest during the periods of elevation or submergence would effect their levelling. In a mountain mass so tumbled as is that of Sikkim, any level surface, or approach to it, demands study; and when, as in the Kulhait valley, we find several similar spurs with comparatively flat tops, to occupy about the same level, it is necessary to look for some levelling cause. The action of denudation is still progressing with astonishing rapidity, under an annual fall of from 100 to 150 inches of rain; but its tendency is to obliterate all such phenomena, and to give sharp, rugged outlines to these spurs, in spite of the conservative effects of vegetation.
The weather at Lingcham was gloomy, cold, and damp, with much rain and fog, and the mean temperature (45·25°) was cold for the elevation (4,860 feet): 52·5° was the highest temperature observed, and 39° the lowest.
A letter from Dr. Campbell reached me three days after my arrival, begging me to cross the country to the Teesta river, and meet him at Bhomsong, on its west bank, where he was awaiting my arrival. I therefore left on the 20th of December, accompanied by my friend the Kajee, who was going to pay his respects to the Rajah. He was constantly followed by a lad, carrying a bamboo of Murwa beer slung round his neck, with which he kept himself always groggy. His dress was thoroughly Lepcha, and highly picturesque, consisting of a very broad-brimmed round-crowned bamboo-platted hat, scarlet jacket, and blue-striped cloth shirt, bare feet, long knife, bow and quiver, rings and earrings, and a long pigtail. He spoke no Hindoostanee, but was very communicative through my interpreters.
Leaving the Lingcham spur, we passed steep cliffs of mica and schist, covered with brushwood and long grass, about 1000 feet above which the Changachelling convent is perched. Crossing a torrent, we came to the next village, on the spur of Kurziuk, where I was met by a deputation of women, sent by the Lamas of Changachelling, bearing enormous loads of oranges, rice, milk, butter, ghee, and the everflowing Murwa beer.
The villagers had erected a shady bower for me to rest under, of leaves and branches, and had fitted up a little bamboo stage, on which to squat cross-legged as they do, or to hang my legs from, if I preferred: after conducting me to this, the parties advanced and piled their cumbrous presents on the ground, bowed, and retired; they were succeeded by the beer-carrier, who plunged a clean drinking-tube to the bottom of the steaming bamboo jug (described at p. 175), and held it to my mouth, then placing it by my side, he bowed and withdrew. Nothing can be more fascinating than the simple manners of these kind people, who really love hospitality for its own sake, and make the stranger feel himself welcome. Just now too, the Durbar had ordered every attention to be paid me; and I hardly passed a village however small, without receiving a present, or a cottage, where beer was not offered. This I found a most grateful beverage; and of the occasional rests under leafy screens during a hot day’s march, and sips at the bamboo jug, I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance. Happily the liquor is very weak, and except by swilling, as my friend the Kajee did, it would be impossible to get fuddled by it.
At Kurziuk I was met by a most respectable Lepcha, who, as a sort of compliment, sent his son to escort us to the next village and spur of Pemiongchi, to reach which we crossed another gorge, of which the situation and features were quite similar to those of Kurziuk and Lingcham.
The Pemiongchi and Changachelling convents and temples stand a few miles apart, on the ridge forming the north flank of the Kulhait valley; and as they will be described hereafter, I now only allude to the village, which is fully 1000 feet below the convent, and large and populous.
At Pemiongchi a superior Lama met me with another overwhelming present: he was a most jolly fat monk, shaven and girdled, and dressed in a scarlet gown: my Lepchas kotowed to him, and he blessed them by the laying on of hands.
There is a marsh on this spur, full of the common English Acorus Calamus, or sweet-flag, whose roots being very aromatic, are used in griping disorders of men and cattle. Hence we descended suddenly to the Great Rungeet, which we reached at its junction with the Kulhait: the path was very steep and slippery, owing to micaceous rocks, and led along the side of an enormous Mendong,[93] which ran down the hill for several hundred yards, and had a large chait at each end, with several smaller ones at intervals. Throughout its length were innumerable inscriptions of “Om Mani Padmi om,” with well carved figures of Boodh in his many incarnations, besides Lamas, etc. At the lower end was a great flat area, on which are burnt the bodies of Sikkim people of consequence: the poorer people are buried, the richer burned, and their ashes scattered or interred, but not in graves proper, of which there are none. Nor are there any signs of Lepcha interment throughout Sikkim; though chaits are erected to the memory of the departed, they have no necessary connection with the remains, and generally none at all. Corpses in Sikkim are never cut to pieces and thrown into lakes, or exposed on hills for the kites and crows to devour, as is the case in Tibet.
[93] This remarkable structure, called the Kaysing Mendong, is 200 yards long, 10 feet high, and 6 or 8 feet broad: it is built of flat, slaty stones, and both faces are covered with inscribed slates, of which there are upwards of 700, and the inscriptions, chiefly “Om Mani,” etc., are in both the Uchen and Lencha Ranja characters of Tibet. A tall stone, nine feet high, covered also with inscriptions, terminates it at the lower end.
We passed some curious masses of crumpled chlorite slate, presenting deep canals or furrows, along which a demon once drained all the water from the Pemiongchi spur, to the great annoyance of the villagers: the Lamas, however, on choosing this as a site for their temples, easily confounded the machinations of the evil spirit, who, in the eyes of the simple Lepchas, was answerable for all the mischief.
I crossed the Great Rungeet at 1840 feet above the sea, where its bed was twenty yards in width; a rude bridge, composed of two culms of bamboo and a handrail, conducted me to the other side, where we camped (on the east bank) in a thick tropical jungle. In the evening I walked down the banks of the river, which flowed in a deep gorge, cumbered with enormous boulders of granite, clay-slate, and mica-slate; the rocks in situ were all of the latter description, highly inclined, and much dislocated. Some of the boulders were fully ten feet in diameter, permeated and altered very much by granite veins which had evidently been injected when molten, and had taken up angular masses of the chlorite which remained, as it were, suspended in the veins.
It is not so easy to account for the present position of these blocks of granite, a rock not common at elevations below 10,000 feet. They have been transported from a considerable distance in the interior of the lofty valley to the north, and have descended not less than 8000 feet, and travelled fully fifteen miles in a straight line, or perhaps forty along the river bed. It may be supposed that moraines have transported them to 8000 feet (the lowest limit of apparent moraines), and the power of river water carried them further; if so, the rivers must have been of much greater volume formerly than they are now.
Our camp was on a gravel flat, like those of the Nepal valleys, about sixty feet above the river; its temperature was 52°, which felt cool when bathing.
From the river we proceeded west, following a steep and clayey ascent up the end of a very long spur, from the lofty mountain range called Mungbreu, dividing the Great Rungeet from the Teesta. We ascended by a narrow path, accomplishing 2,500 feet in an hour and a quarter, walking slowly but steadily, without resting; this I always found a heavy pull in a hot climate.
At about 4000 feet above the sea, the spur became more open and flat, like those of the Kulhait valley, with alternate slopes and comparative flats: from this elevation the view north, south, and west, was very fine; below us flowed the river, and a few miles up it was the conical wooded hill of Tassiding, rising abruptly from a fork of the deep river gorge, crowned with its curious temples and mendongs, and bristling with chaits: on it is the oldest monastery in Sikkim, occupying a singularly picturesque and prominent position. North of this spur, and similar to it, lay that of Raklang, with the temple and monastery of the same name, at about this elevation. In front, looking west, across the Great Rungeet, were the monasteries of Changachelling and Pemiongchi, perched aloft; and south of these were the flat-topped spurs of the Kulhait valley, with their villages, and the great mendong which I had passed on the previous day, running like a white line down the spur. To the north, beyond Tassiding, were two other monasteries, Doobdee and Sunnook, both apparently placed on the lower wooded flanks of Kinchinjunga; whilst close by was Dholing, the seventh religious establishment now in sight.
We halted at a good wooden house to refresh ourselves with Murwa beer, where I saw a woman with cancer in the face, an uncommon complaint in this country. I here bought a little black puppy, to be my future companion in Sikkim: he was of a breed between the famous Tibet mastiff and the common Sikkim hunting-dog, which is a variety of the sorry race called Pariah in the plains. Being only a few weeks old, he looked a mere bundle of black fur; and I carried him off, for he could not walk.
We camped at the village of Lingdam (alt. 5,550 feet), occupying a flat, and surrounded by extensive pools of water (for this country) containing Acorus, Potamogeton, and duckweed. Such ponds I have often met with on these terraces, and they are very remarkable, not being dammed in by any conspicuous barrier, but simply occupying depressions in the surface, from which, as I have repeatedly observed, the land dips rapidly to the valleys below.
This being the high-road from Tumloong or Sikkim Durbar (the capital, and Rajah’s residence) to the numerous monasteries which I had seen, we passed many Lamas and monks on their way home from Tumloong, where they had gone to be present at the marriage of the Tupgain Lama, the eldest son of the Rajah. A dispensation having previously been procured from Lhassa, this marriage had been effected by the Lamas, in order to counteract the efforts of the Dewan, who sought to exercise an undue influence over the Rajah and his family. The Tupgain Lama having only spiritual authority, and being bound to celibacy, the temporal authority devolved on the second son, who was heir apparent of Sikkim; he, however, having died, an illegitimate son of the Rajah was favoured by the Dewan as heir apparent. The bride was brought from Tibet, and the marriage party were feasted for eighteen days at the Rajah’s expense. All the Lamas whom I met were clad in red robes, with girdles, and were shaven, with bare feet and heads, or mitred; they wore rosaries of onyx, turquoise, quartz, lapis lazuli, coral, glass, amber, or wood, especially yellow berberry and sandal-wood: some had staves, and one a trident like an eel-fork, on a long staff, an emblem of the Hindoo Trinity, called Trisool Mahadeo, which represents Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu, in Hindoo; and Boodh, Dhurma, and Sunga, in Boodhist theology. All were on foot, indeed ponies are seldom used in this country; the Lamas, however, walked with becoming gravity and indifference to all around them.
The Kajee waited upon me in the evening; full of importance, having just received a letter from his Rajah, which he wished to communicate to me in private; so I accompanied him to a house close by, where he was a guest, when the secret came out, that his highness was dreadfully alarmed at my coming with the two Ghorka Sepoys, whom I accordingly dismissed.
The house was of the usual Bhoteea form, of wood, well built on posts, one-storied, containing a single apartment hung round with bows, quivers, shields, baskets of rice, and cornucopias of Indian corn, the handsomest and most generous looking of all the Cerealia. The whole party were deep in a carouse on Murwa beer, and I saw the operation of making it. The millet-seed is moistened, and ferments for two days: sufficient for a day’s allowance is then put into a vessel of wicker-work, lined with India-rubber to make it water-tight; and boiling water is poured on it with a ladle of gourd, from a huge iron cauldron that stands all day over the fire. The fluid, when quite fresh, tastes like negus of Cape sherry, rather sour. At this season the whole population are swilling, whether at home or travelling, and heaps of the red-brown husks are seen by the side of all the paths.
Chapter XIII
Raklang pass—Uses of nettles—Edible plants—Lepcha war—Do- mani stone—Neongong—Teesta valley—Pony, saddle, etc.—Meet Campbell—Vegetation and scenery—Presents—Visit of Dewan—Characters of Rajah and Dewan—Accounts of Tibet—Lhassa—Siling—Tricks of Dewan—Walk up Teesta—Audience of Rajah—Lamas—Kajees—Tchebu Lama, his character and position—Effects of interview—Heir-apparent—Dewan’s house—Guitar—Weather—Fall of river—Tibet officers—Gigantic trees—Neongong lake—Mainom, ascent of—Vegetation—Camp on snow—Silver fire—View from top—Kinchin, etc.—Geology—Vapours—Sunset effect—Elevation—Temperature, etc.—Lamas of Neongong—Temples—Religious festival—Bamboo, flowering—Recross pass of Raklang—Numerous temples, villages, etc.—Domestic animals—Descent to Great Rungeet.
On the following morning, after receiving the usual presents from the Lamas of Dholing, and from a large posse of women belonging to the village of Barphiung, close by, we ascended the Raklang pass, which crosses the range dividing the waters of the Teesta from those of the Great Rungeet. The Kajee still kept beside me, and proved a lively companion: seeing me continually plucking and noting plants, he gave me much local information about them. He told me the uses made of the fibres of the various nettles; some being twisted for bowstrings, others as a thread for sewing and weaving; while many are eaten raw and in soups, especially the numerous little succulent species. The great yellow-flowered Begonia was abundant, and he cut its juicy stalks to make sauce (as we do apple-sauce) for some pork which he expected to get at Bhomsong; the taste is acid and very pleasant. The large succulent fern, called Botrychium,[94] grew here plentifully; it is boiled and eaten, both here and in New Zealand. Ferns are more commonly used for food than is supposed. In Calcutta the Hindoos boil young tops of a Polypodium with their shrimp curries; and both in Sikkim and Nepal the watery tubers of an Aspidium are abundantly eaten. So also the pulp of one tree-fern affords food, but only in times of scarcity, as does that of another species in New Zealand (Cyathea medullaris): the pith of all is composed of a coarse sago, that is to say, of cellular tissue with starch granules.
[94] Botrychium Virginicum, Linn. This fern is eaten abundantly by the New Zealanders: its distribution is most remarkable, being found very rarely indeed in Europe, and in Norway only. It abounds in many parts of the Southern United States, the Andes of Mexico, etc., in the Himalaya mountains, Australia, and New Zealand.
A thick forest of Dorjiling vegetation covers the summit, which is only 6,800 feet above the sea: it is a saddle, connecting the lofty mountain of Mainom (alt. 11,000 feet) to the north, with Tendong (alt. 8,663 feet) to the south. Both these mountains are on a range which is continuous with Kinchinjunga, projecting from it down into the very heart of Sikkim. A considerable stand was made here by the Lepchas during the Nepal war in 1787; they defended the pass with their arrows for some hours, and then retired towards the Teesta, making a second stand lower down, at a place pointed out to me, where rocks on either side gave them the same advantages. The Nepalese, however, advanced to the Teesta, and then retired with little loss.
Unfortunately a thick mist and heavy rain cut off all view of the Teesta valley, and the mountains of Chola to the eastward; which I much regretted.
Descending by a very steep, slippery path, we came to a fine mass of slaty gneiss, thirty feet long and thirteen feet high; not in situ, but lying on the mountain side: on its sloping face was carved in enormous characters, “Om Mani Padmi om”; of which letters the top-strokes afford an uncertain footing to the enthusiast who is willing to purchase a good metempsychosis by walking along the slope, with his heels or toes in their cavities. A small inscription in one corner is said to imply that this was the work of a pious monk of Raklang; and the stone is called “Do-mani,” literally, “stone of prayer.”
The rocks and peaks of Mainom are said to overhang the descent here with grandeur; but the continued rain hid everything but a curious shivered peak, apparently of chlorite schist, which was close by, and reflected a green colour it is of course reported to be of turquoise, and inaccessible. Descending, the rocks became more micaceous, with broad seams of pipe-clay, originating in decomposed beds of felspathic gneiss: the natives used this to whitewash and mortar their temples.
I passed the monastery of Neongong, the monks of which were building a new temple; and came to bring me a large present. Below it is a pretty little lake, about 100 yards across, fringed with brushwood. We camped at the village of Nampok, 4,370 feet above the sea; all thoroughly sodden with rain.
During the night much snow had fallen at and above 9000 feet, but the weather cleared on the following morning, and disclosed the top of Mainom, rising close above my camp, in a series of rugged shivered peaks, crested with pines, which looked like statues of snow: to all other quarters this mountain presents a very gently sloping outline. Up the Teesta valley there was a pretty peep of snowy mountains, bearing north 35° east, of no great height.
I was met by a messenger from Dr. Campbell who told me he was waiting breakfast; so I left my party, and, accompanied by the Kajee and Meepo, hurried down to the valley of the Rungoon (which flows east to the Teesta), through a fine forest of tropical trees; passing the villages of Broom[95] and Lingo, to the spur of that name; where I was met by a servant of the Sikkim Dewan’s, with a pony for my use. I stared at the animal, and felt inclined to ask what he had to do here, where it was difficult enough to walk up and down slippery slopes, amongst boulders of rock, heavy forest, and foaming torrents; but I was little aware of what these beasts could accomplish. The Tartar saddle was imported from Tibet, and certainly a curiosity; once—but a long time ago—it must have been very handsome; it was high-peaked, covered with shagreen and silvered ornaments, wretchedly girthed, and with great stirrups attached to short leathers. The bridle and head-gear were much too complicated for description; there were good leather, raw hide, hair-rope, and scarlet worsted all brought into use; the bit was the ordinary Asiatic one, jointed, and with two rings. I mounted on one side, and at once rolled over, saddle and all, to the other; the pony standing quite still. I preferred walking; but Dr. Campbell had begged of me to use the pony, as the Dewan had procured and sent it at great trouble: I, however, had it led till I was close to Bhomsong, when I was hoisted into the saddle and balanced on it, with my toes in the stirrups and my knees up to my breast; twice, on the steep descent to the river, my saddle and I were thrown on the pony’s neck; in these awkward emergencies I was assisted by a man on each side, who supported my weight on my elbows: they seemed well accustomed to easing mounted ponies down hill without giving the rider the trouble of dismounting. Thus I entered Dr. Campbell’s camp at Bhomsong, to the pride and delight of my attendants; and received a hearty welcome from my old friend, who covered me with congratulations on the successful issue of a journey which, at this season, and under such difficulties and discouragements, he had hardly thought feasible.
[95] On the top of the ridge above Broom, a tall stone is erected by the side of the path, covered with private marks, indicating the height of various individuals who are accustomed to measure themselves thus; there was but one mark above 5 feet 7 inches, and that was 6 inches higher. It turned out to be Campbell’s, who had passed a few days before, and was thus proved to top the natives of Sikkim by a long way.
Dr. Campbell’s tent was pitched in an orange-grove, occupying a flat on the west bank of the Teesta, close to a small enclosure of pine-apples, with a pomegranate tree in the middle. The valley is very narrow, and the vegetation wholly tropical, consisting of two species of oak, several palms, rattan-cane (screw-pine), Pandanus, tall grasses, and all the natives of dense hot jungles. The river is a grand feature, broad, rocky, deep, swift, and broken by enormous boulders of rock; its waters were of a pale opal green, probably from the materials of the soft micaceous rocks through which it flows.
A cane bridge crosses it,[96] but had been cut away (in feigned distrust of us), and the long canes were streaming from their attachments on either shore down the stream, and a triangular raft of bamboo was plying instead, drawn to and fro by means of a strong cane.
[96] Whence the name of Bhomsong Samdong, the latter word meaning bridge.
Soon after arriving I received a present from the Rajah, consisting of a brick of Tibet tea, eighty pounds of rancid yak butter, in large squares, done up in yak-hair cloth, three loads of rice, and one of Murwa for beer; rolls of bread,[97] fowls, eggs, dried plums, apricots, jujubes, currants, and Sultana raisins, the latter fruits purchased at Lhassa, but imported thither from western Tibet; also some trays of coarse milk-white crystallised salt, as dug in Tibet.
[97] These rolls, or rather, sticks of bread, are made in Tibet, of fine wheaten flour, and keep for a long time: they are sweet and good, but very dirtily prepared.
In the evening we were visited by the Dewan, the head and front of all our Sikkim difficulties, whose influence was paramount with the Rajah, owing to the age and infirmities of the latter, and his devotion to religion, which absorbed all his time and thoughts. The Dewan was a good-looking Tibetan, very robust, fair, muscular and well fleshed; he had a very broad Tartar face, quite free of hair; a small and beautifully formed mouth and chin, very broad cheekbones, and a low, contracted forehead: his manners were courteous and polite, but evidently affected, in assumption of better breeding than he could in reality lay claim to. The Rajah himself was a Tibetan of just respectable extraction, a native of the Sokpo province, north of Lhassa: his Dewan was related to one of his wives, and I believe a Lhassan by birth as well as extraction, having probably also Kashmir blood in him.[98] Though minister, he was neither financier nor politician, but a mere plunderer of Sikkim, introducing his relations, and those whom he calls so, into the best estates in the country, and trading in great and small wares, from a Tibet pony to a tobacco pipe, wholesale and retail. Neither he nor the Rajah are considered worthy of notice by the best Tibet families or priests, or by the Chinese commissioners settled in Lhassa and Jigatzi. The latter regard Sikkim as virtually English, and are contented with knowing that its ruler has no army, and with believing that its protectors, the English, could not march an army across the Himalaya if they would.
[98] The Tibetans court promiscuous intercourse between their families and the Kashmir merchants who traverse their country.
The Dewan, trading in wares which we could supply better and cheaper, naturally regarded us with repugnance, and did everything in his power to thwart Dr. Campbell’s attempts to open a friendly communication between the Sikkim and English governments. The Rajah owed everything to us, and was, I believe, really grateful; but he was a mere cipher in the hands of his minister. The priests again, while rejoicing in our proximity, were apathetic, and dreaded the more active Dewan; and the people had long given evidence of their confidence in the English. Under these circumstances it was in the hope of gaining the Rajah’s own ear, and representing to him the advantages of promoting an intercourse with us, and the danger of continuing to violate the terms of our treaty, that Dr. Campbell had been authorised by government to seek an interview with His Highness. At present our relations were singularly infelicitous. There was no agent on the Sikkim Rajah’s part to conduct business at Dorjiling, and the Dewan insisted on sending a creature of his own, who had before been dismissed for insolence. Malefactors who escaped into Sikkim were protected, and our police interrupted in the discharge of their duties; slavery was practised; and government communications were detained for weeks and months under false pretences.
In his interviews with us the Dewan appeared to advantage: he was fond of horses and shooting, and prided himself on his hospitality. We gained much information from many conversations with him, during which politics were never touched upon. Our queries naturally referred to Tibet and its geography, especially its great feature the Yarou Tsampoo river; this he assured us was the Burrampooter of Assam, and that no one doubted it in that country. Lhassa he described as a city in the bottom of a flat-floored valley, surrounded by lofty snowy mountains: neither grapes, tea, silk, or cotton are produced near it, but in the Tartchi province of Tibet, one month’s journey east of Lhassa, rice, and a coarse kind of tea are both grown. Two months’ journey north-east of Lhassa is Siling, the well-known great commercial entrepôt[99] in west China; and there coarse silk is produced. All Tibet he described as mountainous, and an inconceivably poor country: there are no plains, save flats in the bottoms of the valleys, and the paths lead over lofty mountains. Sometimes, when the inhabitants are obliged from famine to change their habitations in winter, the old and feeble are frozen to death, standing and resting their chins on their staves; remaining as pillars of ice, to fall only when the thaw of the ensuing spring commences.
[99] The entrepôt is now removed to Tang-Keou-Eul.—See Huc and Gabet.
We remained several days at Bhomsong, awaiting an interview with the Rajah, whose movements the Dewan kept shrouded in mystery. On Dr. Campbell’s arrival at this river a week before, he found messengers waiting to inform him that the Rajah would meet him here; this being half way between Dorjiling and Tumloong. Thenceforward every subterfuge was resorted to by the Dewan to frustrate the meeting; and even after the arrival of the Rajah on the east bank, the Dewan communicated with Dr. Campbell by shooting across the river arrows to which were attached letters, containing every possible argument to induce him to return to Dorjiling; such as that the Rajah was sick at Tumloong, that he was gone to Tibet, that he had a religious fast and rites to perform, etc. etc.
One day we walked up the Teesta to the Rumphiup river, a torrent from Mainom mountain to the west; the path led amongst thick jungle of Wallichia palm, prickly rattan canes, and the Pandanus, or screw-pine, called “Borr,” which has a straight, often forked, palm-like trunk, and an immense crown of grassy saw-edged leaves four feet long: it bears clusters of uneatable fruit as large as a man’s fist, and their similarity to the pine-apple has suggested the name of “Borr” for the latter fruit also, which has for many years been cultivated in Sikkim, and yields indifferent produce. Beautiful pink balsams covered the ground, but at this season few other showy plants were in flower: the rocks were chlorite, very soft and silvery, and so curiously crumpled and contorted as to appear as though formed of scaled of mica crushed together, and confusedly arranged in layers: the strike was north-west, and dip north-east from 60° to 70°.
Messengers from the Dewan overtook us at the river to announce that the Rajah was prepared and waiting to give us a reception; so we returned, and I borrowed a coat from Dr. Campbell instead of my tattered shooting-jacket; and we crossed the river on the bamboo-raft. As it is the custom on these occasions to exchange presents, I was officially supplied with some red cloth and beads: these, as well as Dr. Campbell’s present, should only have been delivered during or after the audience; but our wily friend the Dewan here played us a very shabby trick; for he managed that our presents should be stealthily brought in before our appearance, thus giving to the by-standers the impression of our being tributaries to his Highness!
The audience chamber was a mere roofed shed of neat bamboo wattle, about twenty feet long: two Bhoteeas in scarlet jackets, and with bows in their hands, stood on each side of the door, and our own chairs were carried before us for our accommodation. Within was a square wicker throne, six feet high, covered with purple silk, brocaded with dragons in white and gold, and overhung by a canopy of tattered blue silk, with which material part of the walls also was covered. An oblong box (containing papers) with gilded dragons on it, was placed on the stage or throne, and behind it was perched cross-legged, an odd, black, insignificant looking old man, with twinkling upturned eyes: he was swathed in yellow silk, and wore on his head a pink silk hat with a flat broad crown, from all sides of which hung floss silk. This was the Rajah, a genuine Tibetan, about seventy years old. On some steps close by, and ranged down the apartment, were his relations, all in brocaded silk robes reaching from the throat to the ground, and girded about the waist; and wearing caps similar to that of the Rajah. Kajees, counsellors, and shaven mitred Lamas were there, to the number of twenty, all planted with their backs to the wall, mute and motionless as statues. A few spectators were huddled together at the lower end of the room, and a monk waved about an incense pot containing burning juniper and other odoriferous plants. Altogether the scene was solemn and impressive: as Campbell well expressed it, the genius of Lamaism reigned supreme.
We saluted, but received no complimentary return; our chairs were then placed, and we seated ourselves, when the Dewan came in, clad in a superb purple silk robe, worked with circular gold figures, and formally presented us. The Dewan then stood; and as the Rajah did not understand Hindoostanee, our conversation was carried on through the medium of a little bare-headed rosy-cheeked Lama, named “Tchebu,” clad in a scarlet gown, who acted as interpreter. The conversation was short and constrained: Tchebu was known as a devoted servant of the Rajah and of the heir apparent; and in common with all the Lamas he hates the Dewan, and desires a friendly intercourse between Sikkim and Dorjiling. He is, further, the only servant of the Rajah capable of conversing both in Hindoo and Tibetan, and the uneasy distrustful look of the Dewan, who understands the latter language only, was very evident. He was as anxious to hurry over the interview, as Dr. Campbell and Tchebu were to protract it; it was clear, therefore, that nothing satisfactory could be done under such auspices.
As a signal for departure white silk scarfs were thrown over our shoulders, according to the established custom in Tibet, Sikkim, and Bhotan; and presents were made to us of China silks, bricks of tea, woollen cloths, yaks, ponies, and salt, with worked silk purses and fans for Mrs. Campbell; after which we left. The whole scene was novel and very curious. We had had no previous idea of the extreme poverty of the Rajah, of his utter ignorance of the usages of Oriental life, and of his not having anyone near to instruct him. The neglect of our salutation, and the conversion of our presents into tribute, did not arise from any ill-will: it was owing to the craft of the Dewan in taking advantage of the Rajah’s ignorance of his own position and of good manners. Miserably poor, without any retinue, taking no interest in what passes in his own kingdom, subsisting on the plainest and coarsest food, passing his time in effectually abstracting his mind from the consideration of earthly things, and wrapt in contemplation, the Sikkim Rajah has arrived at great sanctity, and is all but prepared for that absorption into the essence of Boodh, which is the end and aim of all good Boodhists. The mute conduct of his Court, who looked like attendants at an inquisition, and the profound veneration expressed in every word and gesture of those who did move and speak, recalled a Pekin reception. His attendants treated him as a being of a very different nature from themselves; and well might they do so, since they believe that he will never die, but retire from the world only to re-appear under some equally sainted form.
Though productive of no immediate good, our interview had a very favourable effect on the Lamas and people, who had long wished it; and the congratulations we received thereon during the remainder of our stay in Sikkim were many and sincere. The Lamas we found universally in high spirits; they having just effected the marriage of the heir apparent, himself a Lama, said to possess much ability and prudence, and hence being very obnoxious to the Dewan, who vehemently opposed the marriage. As, however, the minister had established his influence over the youngest, and estranged the Rajah from his eldest son, and was moreover in a fair way for ruling Sikkim himself, the Church rose in a body, procured a dispensation from Lhassa for the marriage of a priest, and thus hoped to undermine the influence of the violent and greedy stranger.
In the evening, we paid a farewell visit to the Dewan, whom we found in a bamboo wicker-work hut, neatly hung with bows, arrows, and round Lepcha shields of cane, each with a scarlet tuft of yak-hair in the middle; there were also muskets, Tibetan arms, and much horse gear; and at one end was a little altar, with cups, bells, pastiles, and images. He was robed in a fawn-coloured silk gown, lined with the softest of wool, that taken from unborn lambs: like most Tibetans, he extracts all his beard with tweezers; an operation he civilly recommended to me, accompanying the advice with the present of a neat pair of steel forceps. He aspires to be considered a man of taste, and plays the Tibetan guitar, on which he performed some airs for our amusement: the instrument is round-bodied and long-armed, with six strings placed in pairs, and probably comes from Kashmir: the Tibetan airs were simple and quite pretty, with the time well marked.
During our stay at Bhomsong, the weather was cool, considering the low elevation (1,500 feet), and very steady; the mean temperature was 52·25°, the maximum 71·25°, the minimum 42·75°. The sun set behind the lofty mountains at 3 p.m., and in the morning a thick, wet, white, dripping fog settled in the bottom of the valley, and extended to 800 or 1000 feet above the river-bed; this was probably caused by the descent of cold currents into the humid gorge: it was dissipated soon after sunrise, but formed again at sunset for a few minutes, giving place to clear starlight nights.
A thermometer sunk two feet seven inches, stood at 64°. The temperature of the water was pretty constant at 51°: from here to the plains of India the river has a nearly uniform fall of 1000 feet in sixty-nine miles, or sixteen feet to a mile: were its course straight for the same distance, the fall would be 1000 feet in forty miles, or twenty-five feet to a mile.
Dr. Campbell’s object being accomplished, he was anxious to make the best use of the few days that remained before his return to Dorjiling, and we therefore arranged to ascend Mainom, and visit the principal convents in Sikkim together, after which he was to return south, whilst I should proceed north to explore the south flank of Kinchinjunga. For the first day our route was that by which I had arrived. We left on Christmas-day, accompanied by two of the Rajah’s, or rather Dewan’s officers, of the ranks of Dingpun and Soupun, answering to those of captain and lieutenant; the titles were, however, nominal, the Rajah having no soldiers, and these men being profoundly ignorant of the mysteries of war or drill. They were splendid specimens of Sikkim Bhoteeas (i.e. Tibetans, born in Sikkim, sometimes called Arrhats), tall, powerful, and well built, but insolent and bullying: the Dingpun wore the Lepcha knife, ornamented with turquoises, together with Chinese chopsticks. Near Bhomsong, Campbell pointed out a hot bath to me, which he had seen employed: it consisted of a hollowed prostrate tree trunk, the water in which was heated by throwing in hot stones with bamboo tongs. The temperature is thus raised to 114°, to which the patient submits at repeated intervals for several days, never leaving till wholly exhausted. These baths are called “Sa-choo,” literally “hot-water,” in Tibetan.
We stopped to measure some splendid trees in the valley, and found the trunk of one to be forty-five feet round the buttresses, and thirty feet above them, a large size for the Himalaya: they were a species of Terminalia (Pentaptera), and called by the Lepchas “Sillok-Kun,” “Kun” meaning tree.
We slept at Nampok, and the following morning commenced the ascent. On the way we passed the temple and lake of Neongong; the latter is about 400 yards round, and has no outlet. It contained two English plants, the common duckweed (Lemna minor), and Potamogeton natans: some coots were swimming in it, and having flushed a woodcock, I sent for my gun, but the Lamas implored us not to shoot, it being contrary to their creed to take life wantonly.
We left a great part of our baggage at Neongong, as we intended to return there; and took up with us bedding, food, etc., for two days. A path hence up the mountain is frequented once a year by the Lamas, who make a pilgrimage to the top for worship. The ascent was very gradual for 4000 feet. We met with snow at the level of Dorjiling (7000 feet), indicating a colder climate than at that station, where none had fallen; the vegetation was, however, similar, but not so rich, and at 8000 feet trees common also to the top of Sinchul appeared, with R. Hodgsoni, and the beautiful little winter-flowering primrose, P. petiolaris, whose stemless flowers spread like broad purple stars on the deep green foliage. Above, the path runs along the ridge of the precipices facing the south-east, and here we caught a glimpse of the great valley of the Ryott, beyond the Teesta, with Tumloong, the Rajah’s residence, on its north flank, and the superb snowy peak of Chola at its head.
One of our coolies, loaded with crockery and various indispensables, had here a severe fall, and was much bruised; he however recovered himself, but not our goods.
The rocks were all of chlorite slate, which is not usual at this elevation; the strike was north-west, and dip north-east. At 9000 feet various shrubby rhododendrons prevailed, with mountain-ash, birch, and dwarf-bamboo; also R. Falconeri, which grew from forty to fifty feet high. The snow was deep and troublesome, so we encamped at 9,800 feet, or 800 feet below the top, in a wood of Pyrus, Magnolia, Rhododendron, and bamboo. As the ground was deeply covered with snow, we laid our beds on a thick layer of rhododendron twigs, bamboo, and masses of a pendent moss.
We passed a very cold night, chiefly owing to damp, the temperature falling to 24°. On the following morning we scrambled through the snow, reaching the summit after an hour’s very laborious ascent, and took up our quarters in a large wooden barn-like temple (goompa), built on a stone platform. The summit was very broad, but the depth of the snow prevented our exploring much, and the silver firs (Abies Webbiana) were so tall, that no view could be obtained, except from the temple. The great peak of Kinchinjunga is in part hidden by those of Pundim and Nursing, but the panorama of snowy mountains is very grand indeed. The effect is quite deceptive; the mountains assuming the appearance of a continued chain, the distant snowy peaks being seemingly at little further distance than the nearer ones. The whole range (about twenty-two miles nearer than at Dorjiling) appeared to rise uniformly and steeply out of black pine forests, which were succeeded by the russet-brown of the rhododendron shrubs, and that again by tremendous precipices and gulleys, into which descended mighty glaciers and perpetual snows. This excessive steepness is however only apparent, being due to foreshortening.
The upper 10,000 feet of Kinchin, and the tops of Pundim, Kubra, and Junnoo, are evidently of granite, and are rounded in outline: the lower peaks again, as those of Nursing, etc., present rugged pinnacles of black and red stratified rocks, in many cases resting on white granite, to which they present a remarkable contrast. The general appearance was as if Kinchin and the whole mass of mountains clustered around it, had been up-heaved by white granite, which still forms the loftiest summits, and has raised the black stratified rocks in some places to 20,000 feet in numerous peaks and ridges. One range presented on every summit a cap of black stratified rocks of uniform inclination and dip, striking north-west, with precipitous faces to the south-west: this was clear to the naked eye, and more evident with the telescope, the range in question being only fifteen miles distant, running between Pundim and Nursing. The fact of the granite forming the greatest elevation must not be hastily attributed to that igneous rock having burst through the stratified, and been protruded beyond the latter: it is much more probable that the upheaval of the granite took place at a vast depth, and beneath an enormous pressure of stratified rocks and perhaps of the ocean; since which period the elevation of the whole mountain chain, and the denudation of the stratified rocks, has been slowly proceeding.
To what extent denudation has thus lowered the peaks we dare scarcely form a conjecture; but considering the number and variety of the beds which in some places overlie the gneiss and granite, we may reasonably conclude that many thousand feet have been removed.
It is further assumable that the stratified rocks originally took the forms of great domes, or arches. The prevailing north-west strike throughout the Himalaya vaguely indicates a general primary arrangement of the curves into waves, whose crests run north-west and south-cast; an arrangement which no minor or posterior forces have wholly disturbed, though they have produced endless dislocations, and especially a want of uniformity in the amount and direction of the dip. Whether the loftiest waves were the result of one great convulsion, or of a long-continued succession of small ones, the effect would be the same, namely, that the strata over those points at which the granite penetrated the highest, would be the most dislocated, and the most exposed to wear during denudation.
We enjoyed the view of this superb scenery till noon, when the clouds which had obscured Dorjiling since morning were borne towards us by the southerly wind, rapidly closing in the landscape on all sides. At sunset they again broke, retreating from the northward, and rising from Sinchul and Dorjiling last of all, whilst a line of vapour, thrown by perspective into one narrow band, seemed to belt the Singalelah range with a white girdle, darkened to black where it crossed the snowy mountains; and it was difficult to believe that this belt did not really hang upon the ranges from twenty to thirty miles off, against which it was projected; or that its true position was comparatively close to the mountain on which we were standing, and was due to condensation around its cool, broad, flat summit.
As usual from such elevations, sunset produced many beautiful effects. The zenith was a deep blue, darkening opposite the setting sun, and paling over it into a peach colour, and that again near the horizon passing into a glowing orange-red, crossed by coppery streaks of cirrhus. Broad beams of pale light shot from the sun to the meridian, crossing the moon and the planet Venus. Far south, through gaps in the mountains, the position of the plains of India, 10,000 feet below us, was indicated by a deep leaden haze, fading upwards in gradually paler bands (of which I counted fifteen) to the clear yellow of the sunset sky. As darkness came on, the mists collected around the top of Mainom, accumulating on the windward side, and thrown off in ragged masses from the opposite.
The second night we passed here was fine, and not very cold (the mean temperature being 27° and we kept ourselves quite warm by pine-wood fires. On the following morning the sun tinged the sky of a lurid yellow-red: to the south-west, over the plains, the belts of leaden vapour were fewer (twelve being distinguishable) and much lower than on the previous evening, appearing as if depressed on the visible horizon. Heavy masses of clouds nestled into all the valleys, and filled up the larger ones, the mountain tops rising above them like islands.
The height of our position I calculated to be 10,613 feet. Colonel Waugh had determined that of the summit by trigonometry to be 10,702 feet, which probably includes the trees which cover it, or some rocky peaks on the broad and comparatively level surface.
The mean temperature of the twenty-four hours was 32·7° (max. 41·5°/min. 27·2°), mean dew-point 29·7, and saturation 0·82. The mercury suddenly fell below the freezing point at sunset; and from early morning the radiation was so powerful, that a thermometer exposed on snow sank to 21·2°, and stood at 25·5°, at 10 a.m. The black bulb thermometer rose to 132°, at 9 a.m. on the 27th, or 94·2° above the temperature of the air in the shade. I did not then observe that of radiation from snow; but if, as we may assume, it was not less than on the following morning (21·2°), we shall have a difference of 148·6° Fahr., in contiguous spots; the one exposed to the full effects of the sun, the other to that of radiation through a rarefied medium to a cloudless sky. On the 28th the black bulb thermometer, freely suspended over the snow and exposed to the sun, rose to 108°, or 78° above that of the air in the shade (32°); the radiating surface of the same snow in the shade being 21·2°, or 86·8° colder.
Having taken a complete set of angles and panoramic sketches from the top of Mainom, with seventeen hourly observations, and collected much information from our guides, we returned on the 28th to our tents pitched by the temples at Neongong; descending 7000 feet, a very severe shake along Lepcha paths. In the evening the Lamas visited us, with presents of rice, fowls, eggs, etc., and begged subscriptions for their temple which was then building, reminding Dr. Campbell that he and the Governor-General had an ample share of their prayers, and benefited in proportion. As for me, they said, I was bound to give alms, as I surely needed praying for, seeing how I exposed myself; besides my having been the first Englishman who had visited the snows of Kinchinjunga, the holiest spot in Sikkim.
On the following morning we visited the unfinished temple. The outer walls were of slabs of stone neatly chiselled, but badly mortared with felspathic clay and pounded slate, instead of lime; the partition walls were of clay, shaped in moulds of wood; parallel planks, four feet asunder, being placed in the intended position of the walls, and left open above, the composition was placed in these boxes, a little at a time, and rammed down by the feet of many men, who walked round and round the narrow enclosure, singing, and also using rammers of heavy wood. The outer work was of good hard timber, of Magnolia (“Pendre-kun” of the Lepchas) land oak (“Sokka”). The common “Ban,” or Lepcha knife, supplied the place of axe, saw, adze, and plane; and the graving work was executed with small tools, chiefly on Toon (Cedrela), a very soft wood (the “Simal-kun” of the Lepchas).
This being a festival day, when the natives were bringing offerings to the altar, we also visited the old temple, a small wooden building. Besides more substantial offerings, there were little cones of rice with a round wafer of butter at the top, ranged on the altar in order.[100] Six Lamas were at prayer, psalms, and contemplation, sitting cross-legged on two small benches that ran down the building: one was reading, with his hand and fore-finger elevated, whilst the others listened; anon they all sang hymns, repeated sacred or silly precepts to the bystanders, or joined in a chorus with boys, who struck brass cymbals, and blew straight copper trumpets six feet long, and conch-shells mounted with broad silver wings, elegantly carved with dragons. There were besides manis, or praying-cylinders, drums, gongs, books, and trumpets made of human thigh-bones, plain or mounted in silver.
[100] The worshippers, on entering, walk straight up to the altar, and before, or after, having deposited their gifts, they lift both hands to the forehead, fall on their knees, and touch the ground three times with both head and hands, raising the body a little between each prostration. They then advance to the head Lama, kotow similarly to him, and he blesses them, laying both hands on their heads and repeating a short formula. Sometimes the dorje is used in blessing, as the cross is in Europe, and when a mass of people request a benediction, the Lama pronounces it from the door of the temple with outstretched arms, the people all being prostrate, with their foreheads touching the ground.
Throughout Sikkim, we were roused each morning at daybreak by this wild music, the convents being so numerous that we were always within hearing of it. To me it was always deeply impressive, sounding so foreign, and awakening me so effectually to the strangeness of the wild land in which I was wandering, and of the many new and striking objects it contained. After sleep, too, during which the mind has either been at rest, or carried away to more familiar subjects, the feelings of loneliness and sometimes even of despondency, conjured up, by this solemn music, were often almost oppressive.
Ascending from Neongong, we reached that pass from the Teesta to the Great Rungeet, which I had crossed on the 22nd; and this time we had a splendid view, down both the valleys, of the rivers, and the many spars from the ridge communicating between Tendong and Mainom, with many scattered villages and patches of cultivation. Near the top I found a plant of “Praong,” (a small bamboo), in full seed; this sends up many flowering branches from the root, and but few leaf-bearing ones; and after maturing its seed, and giving off suckers from the root, the parent plant dies. The fruit is a dark, long grain, like rice; it is boiled and made into cakes, or into beer, like Murwa.
Looking west from the summit, no fewer than ten monastic establishments with their temples, villages and cultivation, were at once visible, in the valley of the Great Rungeet, and in those of its tributaries; namely, Changachelling, Raklang, Dholi, Molli, Catsuperri, Dhoobdi, Sunnook, Powhungri, Pemiongchi and Tassiding, all of considerable size, and more or less remarkable in their sites, being perched on spurs or peaks at elevations varying from 3000 to 7000 feet, and commanding splendid prospects.
We encamped at Lingcham, where I had halted on the 21st, and the weather being fine, I took bearings of all the convents and mountains around. There is much cultivation here, and many comparatively rich villages, all occupying flat-shouldered spurs from Mainom. The houses are large, and the yards are full of animals familiar to the eye but not to the ear. The cows of Sikkim, though generally resembling the English in stature, form, and colour, have humps, and grunt rather than low; and the cocks wake the morning with a prolonged howling screech, instead of the shrill crow of chanticleer.
Hence we descended north-west to the Great Rungeet, opposite Tassiding; which is one of the oldest monastic establishments in Sikkim, and one we were very anxious to visit. The descent lay through a forest of tropical trees, where small palms, vines, peppers, Pandanus, wild plantain, and Pothos, were interlaced in an impenetrable jungle, and air-plants clothed the trees.
Chapter XIV
Tassiding, view of and from—Funereal cypress—Camp at Sunnook—Hot vapours—Lama’s house—Temples, decorations, altars, idols, general effect—Chaits—Date of erection—Plundered by Ghorkas—Cross Ratong—Ascend to Pemiongchi—Relation of river-beds to strike of rocks—Slopes of ravines—Pemiongchi, view of—Vegetation—Elevation—Temple, decorations, etc.—Former capital of Sikkim—History of Sikkim—Nightingales—Campbell departs—Tchonpong—Edgeworthia—Cross Rungbee and Ratong—Hoar-frost on plantains—Yoksun—Walnuts—View—Funereal cypresses—Doobdi—Gigantic cypresses—Temples—Snow-fall—Sikkim, etc.—Toys.
Tassiding hill is the steep conical termination of a long spur from a pine-clad shoulder of Kinchinjunga, called Powhungri: it divides the Great Rungeet from its main feeder, the Ratong, which rises from the south face of Kinchin. We crossed the former by a bridge formed of two bamboo stems, slung by canes from two parallel arches of stout branches lashed together.
The ascent for 2,800 feet was up a very steep, dry, zigzag path, amongst mica slate rocks (strike north-east), on which grew many tropical plants, especially the “Tukla,” (Rottlera tinctoria), a plant which yields a brown dye. The top was a flat, curving north-west and south-east, covered with temples, chaits, and mendongs of the most picturesque forms and in elegant groups, and fringed with brushwood, wild plantains, small palms, and apple-trees. Here I saw for the first time the funereal cypress, of which some very old trees spread their weeping limbs and pensile branchlets over the buildings.[101] It is not wild in Sikkim, but imported there and into Bhotan from Tibet: it does not thrive well above 6000 feet elevation. It is called “Tchenden” by the Lepchas, Bhoteeas, and Tibetans, and its fragrant red wood is burnt in the temples.
[101] I was not then aware of this tree having been introduced into England by the intrepid Mr. Fortune from China; and as I was unable to procure seeds, which are said not to ripen in Sikkim, it was a great and unexpected pleasure, on my return home, to find it alive and flourishing at Kew.
The Lamas met us on the top of the hill, bringing a noble present of fowls, vegetables and oranges, the latter most acceptable after our long and hot march. The site is admirably chosen, in the very heart of Sikkim, commanding a fine view, and having a considerable river on either side, with the power of retreating behind to the convents of Sunnook and Powhungri, which are higher up on the same spur, and surrounded by forest enough to conceal an army. Considering the turbulent and warlike character of their neighbours, it is not wonderful that the monks should have chosen commanding spots, and good shelter for their indolent lives: for the same reason these monasteries secured views of one another: thus from Tassiding the great temple of Pemiongchi was seen towering 3000 feet over head, whilst to the north-west, up the course of the river, the hill-sides seemed sprinkled with monasteries.
We camped on a saddle near the village of Sunnook, at 4000 feet above the sea; and on the last day of the year we visited this most interesting monastic establishment: ascending from our camp along the ridge by a narrow path, cut here and there into steps, and passing many rocks covered with inscriptions, broken walls of mendongs, and other remains of the via sacra between the village and temple. At one spot we found a fissure emitting hot vapour of the temperature of 65·5°, that of the air being about 50°. It was simply a hole amongst the rocks; and near the Rungeet a similar one is said to occur, whose temperature fluctuates considerably with the season. It is very remarkable that such an isolated spring should exist on the top of a sharp ridge, 2,800 feet above the bottom of this deep valley.
The general arrangement on the summit was, first the Lamas’ houses with small gardens, then three large temples raised on rudely paged platforms, and beyond these, a square walled enclosure facing the south, full of chaits and mendongs, looking like a crowded cemetery, and planted with funereal cypress (Cupressus funebris).
The house of the principal Lama was an oblong square, the lower story of stone, and the upper of wood: we ascended a ladder to the upper room, which was 24 feet by 8 wattled all round, with prettily latticed windows opening upon a bamboo balcony used for drying grain, under the eaves of the broad thatched roof. The ceiling (of neat bamboo work) was hung with glorious bunches of maize, yellow, red, and brown; an altar and closed wicker cage at one end of the room held the Penates, and a few implements of worship. Chinese carpets were laid on the floor for us, and the cans of Murwa brought round.
The Lama, though one of the red sect, was dressed in a yellow flowered silk robe, but his mitre was red: he gave us much information relative to the introduction of Boodhism into Sikkim.
The three temples stand about fifty yards apart, but are not parallel to one another, although their general direction is east and west.[102] Each is oblong, and narrowed upwards, with the door at one end; the middle (and smallest) faces the west, the others the east: the doorways are all broad, low and deep, protected by a projecting carved portico. The walls are immensely thick, of well-masoned slaty stones; the outer surface of each slopes upwards and inwards, the inner is perpendicular. The roofs are low and thickly thatched, and project from eight to ten feet all round, to keep off the rain, being sometimes supported by long poles. There is a very low upper story, inhabited by the attendant monks and servants, accessible by a ladder at one end of the building. The main body of the temple is one large apartment, entered through a small transverse vestibule, the breadth of the temple, in which are tall cylindrical praying-machines. The carving round the doors is very beautiful, and they are gaudily painted and gilded. The northern temple is quite plain: the middle one is simply painted red, and encircled with a row of black heads, with goggle eyes and numerous teeth, on a white ground; it is said to have been originally dedicated to the evil spirits of the Lepcha creed. The southern, which contains the library, is the largest and best, and is of an irregular square shape. The inside walls and floors are plastered with clay, and painted with allegorical representations of Boodh, etc. From the vestibule the principal apartment is entered by broad folding-doors, studded with circular copper bosses, and turning on iron hinges. It is lighted by latticed windows, sometimes protected outside by a bamboo screen. Owing to the great thickness of the walls (three to four feet), a very feeble light is admitted. In the principal temple, called “Dugang,” six hexagonal wooden columns, narrowed above, with peculiar broad transverse capitals, exquisitely gilded and painted, support the cross-beams of the roof, which are likewise beautifully ornamented. Sometimes a curly-maned gilt lion is placed over a column, and it is always furnished with a black bushy tail: squares, diamonds, dragons, and groups of flowers, vermilion, green, gold, azure, and white, are dispersed with great artistic taste over all the beams; the heavier masses of colour being separated by fine white lines.
[102] Timkowski, in his travels through Mongolia (i. p. 193), says, “According to the rules of Tibetan architecture, temples should face the south:” this is certainly not the rule in Sikkim, nor, so far as I could learn, in Tibet either.
The altars and idols are placed at the opposite end; and two long parallel benches, like cathedral stalls, run down the centre of the building: on these the monks sit at prayer and contemplation, the head Lama occupying a stall (often of very tasteful design) near the altar.
The principal Boodh, or image, is placed behind the altar under a canopy, or behind a silk screen: lesser gods, and gaily dressed and painted effigies of sainted male or female persons are ranged on either side, or placed in niches around the apartment, sometimes with separate altars before them; whilst the walls are more or less covered with paintings of monks in prayer or contemplation. The principal Boodh (Sakya Sing) sits cross-legged, with the left heel up: his left-hand always rests on his thigh, and holds the padmi or lotus and jewel, which is often a mere cup; the right-hand is either raised, with the two forefingers up, or holds the dorje, or rests on the calf of the upturned leg. Sakya has generally curled hair, Lamas have mitres, females various head-dresses; most wear immense ear-rings, and some rosaries. All are placed on rude pediments, so painted as to convey the idea of their rising out of the petals of the pink, purple, or white lotus. None are in any way disagreeable; on the contrary most have a calm and pleasing expression, suggestive of contemplation.
The great or south temple contained a side altar of very elegant shape, placed before an image encircled by a glory. Flowers, juniper, peacock’s feathers, pastiles, and rows of brass cups of water were the chief ornaments of the altars, besides the instruments I have elsewhere enumerated. In this temple was the library, containing several hundred books, in pigeon-holes, placed in recesses.[103]
[103] For a particular account of the images and decorations of these temples, sea Dr. Campbell’s paper in “Bengal Asiatic Society’s Trans.,” May, 1849. The principal object of veneration amongst the Ningma or red sect of Boodhists in Sikkim and Bhotan is Gorucknath, who is always represented sitting cross-legged, holding the dorje in one hand, which is raised; whilst the left rests in the lap and holds a cup with a jewel in it. The left arm supports a trident, whose staff pierces three sculls (a symbol of Shiva), a rosary hangs round his neck, and he wears a red mitre with a lunar crescent and sun in front.
The effect on entering these cold and gloomy temples is very impressive; the Dugang in particular is exquisitely ornamented and painted, and the vista from the vestibule to the principal idol, of carved and coloured pillars and beams, is very picturesque. Within, the general arrangement of the colours and gilding is felt to be harmonious and pleasing, especially from the introduction of slender white streaks between the contrasting masses of colour, as adopted in the Great Exhibition building of 1851. It is also well worthy of remark that the brightest colours are often used in broad masses, and when so, are always arranged chromatically, in the sequence of the rainbow’s hues, and are hence never displeasing to the eye. The hues, though bright, are subdued by the imperfect light: the countenances of the images are all calm, and their expression solemn. Whichever way you turn, the eye is met by some beautiful specimen of colouring or carving, or some object of veneration. The effect is much heightened by the incense of juniper and sweet-smelling herbs which the priests burn on entering, by their grave and decorous conduct, and by the feeling of respect that is demanded by a religion which theoretically inculcates and adores virtue in the abstract, and those only amongst men who practise virtue. To the idol itself the Boodhist attaches no real importance; it is an object of reverence, not of worship, and no virtue or attribute belong to it per se; it is a symbol of the creed, and the adoration is paid to the holy man whom it represents.
Beyond the temples are the chaits and mendongs, scattered without much order; and I counted nearly twenty-five cbaits of the same form,[104] between eight and thirty feet high. The largest is consecrated to the memory of the Rajah’s eldest son, who, however, is not buried here. A group of these structures is, as I have often remarked, extremely picturesque, and those at Tassiding, from their number, variety, and size, their commanding and romantic position, and their being interspersed with weeping cypresses, are particularly so.
[104] In Sikkim the form of the cube alone is always strictly preserved; that of the pyramid and hemisphere being often much modified. The cube stands on a flight of usually three steps, and is surmounted by a low pyramid of five steps; on this is placed a swelling, urn-shaped body, which represents the hemisphere, and is surmounted by another cube. On the latter is a slender, round or angled spire (represented by a pyramid in Burma), crowned with a crescent and disc, or sun, in moon. Generally, the whole is of stone, with the exception of the spire, which is of wood, painted red.
The Tassiding temples and convents were founded upwards of 300 years ago, by the Lamas who accompanied the first Rajah to Sikkim; and they have been continuously served by Lamas of great sanctity, many of whom have been educated at Lhassa. They were formerly very wealthy, but during the Nepal war they were plundered of all their treasures, their silver gongs and bells, their best idols, dorjes, and manis, and stripped of their ornaments; since which time Pemiongchi has been more popular. In proof of their antiquity, it was pointed out that most of the symbols and decorations were those of pure Lama Boodhism, as practised in Tibet.
Although the elevation is but 4,840 feet, the weather was cold and raw, with rain at noon, followed by thunder and lightning. These electrical disturbances are frequent about midsummer and midwinter, prevailing over many parts of India.
January 1st, 1849.—The morning of the new year was bright and beautiful, though much snow had fallen on the mountains; and we left Sunnook for Pemiongchi, situated on the summit of a lofty spur on the opposite side of the Ratong. We descended very steeply to the bed of the river (alt. 2,480 feet) which joins the Great Rungeet below the convents. The rocks were micaceous, dipping west and north-west 45°, and striking north and north-east, which direction prevailed for 1000 feet or so up the opposite spur. I had observed the same dip and stroke on the east flank of the Tassiding spur; but both the Ratong on its west side, and the Great Rungeet on the east, flow in channels that show no relation to either the dip or strike. I have generally remarked in Sikkim that the channels of the rivers when cutting through or flowing at the base of bluff cliffs, are neither parallel to nor at right angles to the strike of the rocks forming the cliffs. I do not hence conclude that there is no original connection between the directions of the rivers, and the lines of fracture; but whatever may have once subsisted between the direction of the fissures and that of the strike, it is in the Sikkim Himalaya now wholly masked by shiftings, which accompanied subsequent elevations and depressions.
Mr. Hopkins has mathematically demonstrated that the continued exertion of a force in raising superimposed strata would tend to produce two classes of fractures in those strata; those of the first order at right angles to the direction of the wave or ridge (or line of strike); those of the second order parallel to the strike. Supposing the force to be withdrawn after the formation of the two fractures, the result would be a ridge, or mountain chain, with diverging fissures from the summit, crossed by concentric fissures; and the courses which the rivers would take in flowing down the ridge, would successively be at right angles and parallel to the strike of the strata. Now, in the Himalaya, a prevalent strike to the north-west has been recognised in all parts of the chain, but it is everywhere interfered with by mountains presenting every other direction of strike, and by their dip never remaining constant either in amount or direction. Consequently, as might be expected, the directions of the river channels bear no apparent relation to the general strike of the rocks.
We crossed the Ratong (twenty yards broad) by a cane bridge, suspended between two rocks of green chlorite, full of veins of granite. Ascending, we passed the village of Kameti on a spur, on the face of which were strewed some enormous detached blocks of white and pink stratified quartz: the rocks in situ were all chlorite schist.
Looking across the valley to the flank of Mainom, the disposition of the ridges and ravines on its sides was very evident; many of the latter, throughout their westerly course, from their commencement at 10,000 feet, to their debouchure in the Great Rungeet at 2000, had a bluff, cliffy, northern flank, and a sloping southern one. The dip of the surfaces is, therefore, north-west, the exposure consequently of the villages which occupy terraces on the south flanks of the lateral valleys. The Tassiding spur presented exactly the same arrangement of its ravines, and the dip of the rocks being north-west, it follows that the planes of the sloping surfaces coincide in direction (though not in amount of inclination) with that of the dip of the subjacent strata, which is anything but a usual phenomenon in Sikkim.
The ascent to Pemiongchi continued very steep, through woods of oaks, chesnuts, and magnolias, but no tree-fern, palms, Pothos, or plantain, which abound at this elevation on the moister outer ranges of Sikkim. The temple (elev. 7,083 feet) is large, eighty feet long, and in excellent order, built upon the lofty terminal point of the great east and west spur that divides the Kulhait from the Ratong and Rungbee rivers; and the great Changachelling temple and monastery stand on another eminence of the same ridge, two miles further west.
The view of the snowy range from this temple is one of the finest in Sikkim; the eye surveying at one glance the vegetation of the Tropics and the Poles. Deep in the valleys the river-beds are but 3000 feet above the sea, and are choked with fig-trees, plantains, and palms; to these succeed laurels and magnolias, and higher up still, oaks, chesnuts, birches, etc.; there is, however, no marked line between the limits of these two last forests, which form the prevailing arboreous vegetation between 4000 and 10,000 feet, and give a lurid line to the mountains. Pine forests succeed for 2000 feet higher, when they give place to a skirting of rhododendron and berberry. Among these appear black naked rocks, rising up in cliffs, between which are gulleys, down which the snow now (on the 1st January) descended to 12,000 feet. The mountain flanks are much more steep and rocky than those at similar heights on the outer ranges, and cataracts are very numerous, and of considerable height, though small in volume.
Pemiongchi is at the same elevation as Dorjiling, and the contrast between the shoulders of 8000 to 10,000 feet on Kinchinjunga, and those of equal height on Tendong and Tonglo, is very remarkable: looking at the latter mountains from Dorjiling, the observer sees no rock, waterfall, or pine, throughout their whole height; whereas the equally wooded flanks of these inner ranges are rocky, streaked with thread-like waterfalls, and bristling with silver firs.
This temple, the most ancient in Sikkim, is said to be 400 years old; it stands on a paved platform, and is of the same form and general character as those of Tassiding. Inside, it is most beautifully decorated, especially the beams, columns, capitals and architraves, but the designs are coarser than those of Tassiding.[105] The square end of every beam in the roof is ornamented either with a lotus flower or with a Tibetan character, in endless diversity of colour and form, and the walls are completely covered with allegorical paintings of Lamas and saints expounding or in contemplation, with glories round their heads, mitred, and holding the dole and jewel.
[105] Mr. Hodgson informed me that many of the figures and emblems in this temple are those of Tantrica Boodhism, including Shiva, Devi, and other deities usually called Brahminical; Kakotak, or the snake king, a figure terminating below in a snake, is also seen; with the tiger, elephant, and curly-maned lion.
The principal image is a large and hideous figure of Sakya-thoba, in a recess under a blue silk canopy, contrasting with a calm figure of the late Rajah, wearing a cap and coronet.
Pemiongchi was once the capital of Sikkim, and called the Sikkim Durbar: the Rajah’s residence was on a curious flat to the south of the temple, and a few hundred feet below it, where are the remains of (for this country) extensive walls and buildings. During the Nepal war, the Rajah was driven west across the Teesta, whilst the Ghorkas plundered Tassiding, Pemiongchi, Changachelling, and all the temples and convents to the east of that river. It was then that the famous history of Sikkim,[106] compiled by the Lamas of Pemiongchi, and kept at this temple, was destroyed, with the exception of a few sheets, with one of which Dr. Campbell and myself were each presented. We were told that the monks of Changachelling and those of this establishment had copied what remained, and were busy compiling from oral information, etc.: whatever value the original may have possessed, however, is irretrievably lost. A magnificent copy of the Boodhist Scriptures was destroyed at the same time; it consisted of 400 volumes, each containing several hundred sheets of Daphne paper.
[106] This remarkable and beautiful manuscript was written on thick oblong sheets of Tibet paper, painted black to resist decay, and the letters were yellow and gold. The Nepalese soldiers wantonly employed the sheets to roof the sheds they erected, as a protection from the weather.
The ground about the temple was snowed; and we descended a few hundred feet, to encamp in a most picturesque grove, among chaits and inscribed stones, with a peep of the temples above. Nightingales warbled deliciously night and morning, which rather surprised us, as the minimum thermometer fell to 27·8°, and the ground next day was covered with hoar-frost; the elevation being 6,580 feet. These birds migrate hither in October and November, lingering in the Himalayan valleys till the cold of early spring drives them further south, to the plains of India, whence they return north in March and April.
On the 2nd of January I parted from my friend, who was obliged to hurry to the great annual fair at Titalya. I regretted much being unable to accompany Dr. Campbell to this scene of his disinterested labours, especially as the Nawab of Moorshedabad was to be present, one of the few wealthy native princes of Bengal who still keep a court worth seeing; but I was more anxious to continue my explorations northward till the latest moment: I however accompanied him for a short distance on his way towards Dorjiling. We passed the old Durbar, called Phieungoong (“Bamboo-hill,” so named from the abundance of a small bamboo, “Phieung.”) The buildings, now in ruins, occupy a little marshy flat, hemmed in by slate rocks, and covered with brambles and Andromeda bushes. A wall, a bastion, and an arched gateway, are the only traces of fortifications; they are clothed with mosses, lichens, and ferns.
A steep zigzag path, descending amongst long grass and scarlet rhododendrons, leads to the Kaysing Mendong.[107] Here I bade adieu to Dr. Campbell, and toiled up the hill, feeling very lonely. The zest with which he had entered into all my pursuits, and the aid he had afforded me, together with the charm that always attends companionship with one who enjoys every incident of travel, had so attracted me to him that I found it difficult to recover my spirits. It is quite impossible for anyone who cannot from experience realise the solitary wandering life I had been leading for months, to appreciate the desolate feeling that follows the parting from one who has heightened every enjoyment, and taken far more than his share of every annoyance and discomfort: the few days we had spent together appeared then, and still, as months.
[107] Described at page 287.
On my return to Pemiongchi I spent the remainder of the day sketching in the great temple, gossiping with the Lamas, and drinking salted and buttered tea-soup, which I had begun to like, when the butter was not rancid.
My route hence was to be along the south flank of Kinchinjunga, north to Jongri, which lay about four or five marches off, on the road to the long deserted pass of Kanglanamo, by which I had intended entering Sikkim from Nepal, when I found the route up the Yalloong valley impracticable. The village and ruined convents of Yoksun lay near the route, and the temples of Doobdi, Catsuperri and Molli, on the Ratong river.
I descended to the village of Tchonpong (alt. 4,980 feet), where I was detained a day to obtain rice, of which I required ten days’ supply for twenty-five people. On the way I passed groves of the paper-yielding Edgeworthia Gardneri: it bears round heads of fragrant, beautiful, yellow flowers, and would be a valuable acquisition to an English conservatory.
From Tchonpong we descended to the bed of the Rungbee (alt. 3,160 feet), an affluent of the Ratong, flowing in a deep galley with precipitous sides of mica schist full of garnets, dipping west and north-west 45°: it was spanned by a bridge of two loose bamboo culms, about fifteen yards long, laid across without handrails; after wet sand had been thrown on it the bare-footed coolies crossed easily enough, but I, having shoes on, required a hand to steady me. From this point we crossed a lofty spur to the Ratong (alt. 3000 feet), where we encamped, the coolies being unable to proceed further on such very bad roads. This river descends from the snows of Kinchin, and consequently retains the low temperature 42°, being fully 7° colder than the Rungbee, which at an elevation of but 3000 feet appears very remarkable: it must however be observed that scarcely anywhere does the sun penetrate to the bottom of its valley.
We encamped on a gravelly flat, fifty feet above the river, strewn with water-worn boulders, and so densely covered with tall Artemisiæ, gigantic grasses, bamboo, plantain, fern, and acacia, that we had to clear a space in the jungle, which exhaled a rank heavy smell.
Hoar-frost formed copiously in the night, and though above the sun’s rays were very powerful, they did not reach this spot till 7.30 a.m., the frost remaining in the shade till nearly 9 a.m.; and this on plantains, and other inhabitants of hot-houses in England.
Hence I ascended to Yoksun, one of the most curious and picturesque spots in Sikkim, and the last inhabited place towards Kinchinjunga. The path was excessively steep and rocky for the first mile or two, and then alternately steep and flat. Mixed with many tropical trees, were walnuts of the common English variety; a tree, which, though planted here, is wild near Dorjiling, where it bears a full-sized fruit, as hard as a hickory-nut: those I gathered in this place were similar, whereas in Bhotan the cultivated nut is larger, thin-shelled, and the kernel is easily removed. We ascended one slope, of an angle of 36° 30′, which was covered with light black mould, and had been recently cleared by fire: we found millet now cultivated on it. From the top the view of the Ratong valley was very fine: to the north lay Yoksun, appearing from this height to occupy a flat, two miles long and one broad, girdled by steep mountains to the north and east, dipping very suddenly 2,200 feet to the Ratong on the west. To the right was a lofty hill, crowned with the large temple and convents of Doobdi, shadowed by beautiful weeping cypresses, and backed by lofty pine-clad mountains. Northward, the gorge of the Ratong opened as a gloomy defile, above which rose partially snowed mountains, which shut out Kinchinjunga. To the west, massive pine-clad mountains rose steeply; while the little hamlet of Lathiang occupied a remarkable shelf overhanging the river, appearing inaccessible except by ropes from above. South-west, the long spurs of Molli and Catsuperri, each crowned with convents or temples, descended from Singalelah; and parallel to them on the south; but much longer and more lofty, was the great mountain range north of the Kulbait, with the temples and convents of Pemiongchi, and Changachelling, towering in the air. The latter range dips suddenly to the Great Rungeet, where Tassiding, with its chaits and cypresses, closed the view. The day was half cloud, half sunshine; and the various effects of light and shade, now bringing out one or other of the villages and temples, now casting the deep valleys into darker gloom, was wonderfully fine.
Yoksun was the earliest civilised corner of Sikkim, and derived its name (which signifies in Lepcha “three chiefs”) from having been the residence of three Lamas of great influence, who were the means of introducing the first Tibetan sovereign into the country. At present it boasts of but little cultivation, and a scattered population, inhabiting a few hamlets, 5,500 feet above the sea: beautiful lanes and paths wind everywhere over the gentle slopes, and through the copsewood that has replaced the timber-trees of a former period. Mendongs and chaits are very numerous, some of great size; and there are also the ruins of two very large temples, near which are some magnificent weeping cypresses, eighty feet high. These fine trees are landmarks from all parts of the flat; they form irregular cones of pale bright green, with naked gnarled tops, the branches weep gracefully, but not like the picture in Macartney’s Embassy to China, whence originated the famous willow-pattern of our crockery. The ultimate branchlets are very slender and pendulous; my Lepcha boys used to make elegant chaplets of them, binding the withes with scarlet worsted. The trunk is quite erect, smooth, cylindrical, and pine-like; it harbours no moss, but air-plants, Orchids, and ferns, nestle on the limbs, and pendulous lichens, like our beard-moss, wave from the branches.
In the evening I ascended to Doobdi. The path was broad, and skilfully conducted up a very steep slope covered with forest: the top, which is 6,470 feet above the sea, and nearly 1000 above Yoksun, is a broad partially paved platform, on which stand two temples, surrounded by beautiful cypresses: one of these trees (perhaps the oldest in Sikkim) measured sixteen and a half feet in girth, at five feet from the ground, and was apparently ninety feet high: it was not pyramidal, the top branches being dead and broken, and the lower limbs spreading; they were loaded with masses of white-flowered Cœlogynes, and Vacciniums. The younger trees were pyramidal.
I was received by a monk of low degree, who made many apologies for the absence of his superior, who had been ordered an eight years’ penance and seclusion from the world, of which only three had passed. On inquiry, I learnt the reason for this; the holy father having found himself surrounded by a family, to which there would have been no objection, had he previously obtained a dispensation. As, however, he had omitted this preliminary, and was able to atone by prayer and payment, he had been condemned to do penance; probably at his own suggestion, as the seclusion will give him sanctity, and eventually lead to his promotion, when his error shall have been forgotten.
Both temples are remarkable for their heavily ornamented, two-storied porticos, which occupy nearly the whole of one end. The interior decorations are in a ruinous condition, and evidently very old; they have no Hindoo emblems.
The head Lama sent me a present of dried peaches, with a bag of walnuts, called “Koal-kun” by the Lepchas, and “Taga-sching” by the Bhoteeas; the two terminations alike signifying “tree.”
The view of Yoksun from this height was very singular: it had the appearance of an enormous deposit banked up against a spur to the south, and mountains to the east, and apparently levelled by the action of water: this deposit seemed as though, having once completely filled the valley of the Ratong, that river had cut a gorge 2000 feet deep between it and the opposite mountain.
Although the elevation is so low, snow falls abundantly at Doobdi in winter; I was assured that it has been known of the depth of five feet, a statement I consider doubtful; the quantity is, however, certainly greater than at equal heights about Dorjiling, no doubt owing to its proximity to Kinchinjunga.
I was amused here by watching a child playing with a popgun, made of bamboo, similar to that of quill, with which most English children are familiar, which propels pellets by means of a spring-trigger made of the upper part of the quill. It is easy to conclude such resemblances between the familiar toys of different countries to be accidental, but I question their being really so. On the plains of India, men may often be seen for hours together, flying what with us are children’s kites; and I procured a jews’-harp from Tibet. These are not the toys of savages, but the amusements of people more than half-civilised, and with whom we have had indirect communication from the earliest ages. The Lepchas play at quoits, using slate for the purpose, and at the Highland games of “putting the stone” and “drawing the stone.” Chess, dice, draughts, Punch, hockey, and battledore and shuttlecock, are all Indo-Chinese or Tartarian; and no one familiar with the wonderful instances of similarity between the monasteries, ritual, ceremonies, attributes, vestments, and other paraphernalia of the eastern and western churches, can fail to acknowledge the importance of recording even the most trifling analogies or similarities between the manners and customs of the young as well as of the old.
Chapter XV
Leave Yoksun for Kinchinjunga—Ascend Ratong valley—Salt-smuggling over Ratong—Landslips—Plants—Buckeem—Blocks of gneiss—Mon Lepcha—View—Weather—View from Gubroo—Kinchinjunga, tops of—Pundim cliff—Nursing—Vegetation of Himalaya—Coup d’œil of Jongri—Route to Yalloong—Arduous route of salt-traders from Tibet—Kinchin, ascent of—Lichens—Surfaces sculptured by snow and ice—Weather at Jongri—Snow—Shades for eyes.
I left Yoksun on an expedition to Kinchinjunga on the 7th of January. It was evident that at this season I could not attain any height; but I was most anxious to reach the lower limit of that mass of perpetual snow which descends in one continuous sweep from 28,000 to 15,000 feet, and radiates from the summit of Kinchin, along every spur and shoulder for ten to fifteen miles, towards each point of the compass.
The route lay for the first mile over the Yoksun flat, and then wound along the almost precipitous east flank of the Ratong, 1000 feet above its bed, leading through thick forest. It was often difficult, crossing torrents by calms of bamboo, and leading up precipices by notched poles and roots of trees. I wondered what could have induced the frequenting of such a route to Nepal, when there were so many better ones over Singalelah, till I found from my guide that he had habitually smuggled salt over this pass to avoid the oppressive duty levelled by the Dewan on all imports from Tibet by the eastern passes: he further told me that it took five days to reach Yalloong in Nepal front Yoksun, on the third of which the Kanglanamo pass is crossed, which is open from April to November, but is always heavily snowed. Owing to this duty, and the remoteness of the eastern passes, the people on the west side of the Great Rungeet were compelled to pay an enormous sum for salt; and the Lamas of Changachelling and Pemiongchi petitioned Dr. Campbell to use his influence with the Nepal Court to have the Kanglanamo pass re-opened, and the power of trading with the Tibetans of Wallanchoon, Yangma, and Kambachen, restored to them: the pass having been closed since the Nepalese war, to prevent the Sikkim people from kidnapping children and slaves, as was alleged to be their custom.[108]
[108] An accusation in which there was probably some truth; for the Sikkim Dingpun, who guided Dr. Campbell and myself to Mainom, Tassiding, etc., since kidnapped, or caused to be abducted, a girl of Brahmin parents, from the Mai valley of Nepal, a transaction which cost him some 300 rupees. The Nepal Durbar was naturally furious, the more so as the Dingpun had no caste, and was therefore abhorred by all Brahmins. Restitution was demanded through Dr. Campbell, who caused the incensed Dingpun to give up his paramour and her jewels. He vowed vengeance against Dr. Campbell, and found means to gratify it, as I shall hereafter show.
We passed some immense landslips, which had swept the forest into the torrent, and exposed white banks of angular detritus of gneiss and granite: we crossed one 200 yards long, by a narrow treacherous path, on a slope of 35°: the subjacent gneiss was nearly vertical, striking north-east. We camped at 6,670 feet, amongst a vegetation I little expected to find so close to the snows of Kinchin; it consisted of oak, maple, birch, laurel, rhododendron, white Daphne, jessamine, Arum, Begonia, Cyrtandraceæ, pepper, fig, Menispermum, wild cinnamon, Scitamineæ, several epiphytic orchids, vines, and ferns in great abundance.
On the following day, I proceeded north-west up the Ratong river, here a furious torrent; which we crossed, and then ascended a very steep mountain called “Mon Lepcha.” Immense detached masses of gneiss, full of coarse garnets, lay on the slope, some of which were curiously marked with a series of deep holes, large enough to put one’s fist in, and said to be the footprints of the sacred cow. They appeared to me to have been caused by the roots of trees, which spread over the rocks in these humid regions, and wear channels in the hardest material, especially when they follow the direction of its lamination or stratification.
I encamped at a place called Buckeem (alt. 8,650 ft.), in a forest of Abies Brunoniana and Webbiana, yew, oak, various rhododendrons, and small bamboo. Snow lay in patches at 8000 feet, and the night was cold and clear. On the following morning I continued the ascent, alternately up steeps and along perfectly level shelves, on which were occasionally frozen pools, surrounded with dwarf juniper and rhododendrons. Across one I observed the track of a yak in the snow; it presented two ridges, probably from the long hair of this animal, which trails on the ground, sweeping the snow from the centre of its path. At 11,000 feet the snow lay deep and soft in the woods of silver fir, and the coolies waded through it with difficulty.
Enormous fractured boulders of gneiss were frequent over the whole of Mon Lepcha, from 7000 to 11,000 feet: they were of the same material as the rock in situ, and as unaccountable in their origin as the loose blocks on Dorjiling and Sinchul spurs at similar elevations, often cresting narrow ridges. I measured one angular detached block, forty feet high, resting on a steep narrow shoulder of the spur, in a position to which it was impossible it could have rolled; and it is equally difficult to suppose that glacial ice deposited it 4000 feet above the bottom of the gorge, except we conclude the valley to have been filled with ice to that depth. A glance at the map will show that Mon Lepcha is remarkably situated, opposite the face of Kinchinjunga, and at the great bend of the Ratong. Had that valley ever been filled with water during a glacial period, Mon Lepcha would have formed a promontory, and many floating bergs from Kinchin would have been stranded on its flank: but I nowhere observed these rocks to be of so fine a granite as I believe the upper rocks of Kinchin to be, and I consequently cannot advance even that far-fetched solution with much plausibility.
As I ascended, the rocks became more granitic, with large crystals of mica. The summit was another broad bare flat, elevated 13,080 feet, and fringed by a copse of rose, berberry, and very alpine rhododendrons: the Himalayan heather (Adromeda fastigiata) grew abundantly here, affording us good fuel.
The toilsome ascent through the soft snow and brushwood delayed the coolies, who scarcely accomplished five miles in the day. Some of them having come up by dark, I prepared to camp on the mountain-top, strewing thick masses of Andromeda and moss (which latter hung in great tufts from the bushes) on the snow; my blankets bad not arrived, but there was no prospect of a snow-storm.
The sun was powerful when I reached the summit, and I was so warm that I walked about barefoot on the frozen snow without inconvenience, preferring it to continuing in wet stockings: the temperature at the time was 29·5°, with a brisk south-east moist wind, and the dew point 22·8°.
The night was magnificent, brilliant starlight, with a pale mist over the mountains: the thermometer fell to 15·5° at 7.30 p.m., and one laid upon wood with its bulb freely exposed, sank to 7·5°: the snow sparkled with broad flakes of hoar-frost in the full moon, which was so bright, that I recorded my observations by its light. Owing to the extreme cold of radiation, I passed a very uncomfortable night. The minimum thermometer fell to 1° in shade.[109] The sky was clear; and every rock, leaf, twig, blade of grass, and the snow itself, were covered with broad rhomboidal plates of hoar-frost, nearly one-third of an inch across: while the metal scale of the thermometer instantaneously blistered my tongue. As the sun rose, the light reflected from these myriads of facets had a splendid effect.
[109] At sunrise the temperature was 11·5°; that of grass, cleared on the previous day from snow, and exposed to the sky, 6·5°; that on wool, 2·2°; and that on the surface of the snow, 0·7°.
Before sunrise the atmosphere was still, and all but cloudless. To the south-east were visible the plains of India, at least 140 miles distant; where, as usual, horizontal layers of leaden purple vapour obscured the horizon: behind these the sun rose majestically, instantly dispersing them, while a thin haze spread over all the intervening mountains, from its slanting beams reaching me through otherwise imperceptible vapours: these, as the sun mounted higher, again became invisible, though still giving that transparency to the atmosphere and brilliant definition of the distances, so characteristic of a damp, yet clear day.
Mon Lepcha commands a most extensive view of Sikkim, southward to Dorjiling. At my feet lay the great and profound valley of the Ratong, a dark gulf of vegetation. Looking northward, the eye followed that river to the summit of Kinchinjunga (distant eighteen miles), which fronts the beholder as Mont Blanc does when seen from the mountains on the opposite side of the valley of Chamouni. To the east are the immense precipices and glaciers of Pundim, and on the west those of Kubra, forming great supporters to the stupendous mountain between them. Mon Lepcha itself is a spur running south-east from the Kubra shoulder: it is very open, and covered with rounded hills for several miles further north, terminating in a conspicuous conical black hummock[110] called Gubroo, of 15,000 feet elevation, which presents a black cliff to the south.
[110] This I have beau told is the true Kubra; and the great snowy mountain behind it, which I here, in conformity with the Dorjiling nomenclature, call Kubra, has no name, being considered a part of Kinchin.
Kinchinjunga rises in three heads, of nearly equal height,[111] which form a line running north-west. It exposes many white or grey rocks, bare of snow, and disposed in strata[112] sloping to the west; the colour of all which above 20,000 feet, and the rounded knobbed form of the summit, suggest a granitic formation. Lofty snowed ridges project from Kubra into the Ratong valley, presenting black precipices of stratified rocks to the southward. Pundim has a very grand appearance; being eight miles distant, and nearly 9000 feet above Mon Lepcha, it subtends an angle of 12°; while Kinchin top, though 15,000 feet higher than Mon Lepcha, being eighteen miles distant, rises only 9° 30 minutes above the true horizon: these angular heights are too small to give much grandeur and apparent elevation to mountains, however lofty; nor would they do so in this case, were it not that the Ratong valley which intervenes, is seen to be several thousand feet lower, and many degrees below the real horizon.
[111] The eastern and western tops, are respectively 27,826 and 28,177 feet above the level of the sea.
[112] I am aware that the word strata is inappropriate here; the appearance of stratification or bedding, if it indicate any structure of the rock, being, I cannot doubt, due to that action which gives parallel cleavage planes to granite in many parts of the world, and to which the so-called lamination or foliation of slate and gneiss is supposed by many geologists to be due. It is not usual to find this structure so uniformly and conspicuously developed through large masses of granite, as it appeared to me to be on the sides of Kinchinjunga and on the top of Junnoo, as seen from the Choonjerma pass (p. 264, plate); but it is sometimes very conspicuous, and nowhere more than in the descent of the Grimsel towards Meyringen, where the granite on the east flank of that magnificent gorge seems cleft into parallel nearly vertical strata.
Pundim has a tremendous precipice to the south, which, to judge from its bareness of snow, must be nearly perpendicular; and it presented a superb geological section. The height of this precipice I found by angles with a pocket sextant to be upwards of 3,400 feet, and that of its top to be 21,300 above the sea, and consequently only 715 feet less than that of the summit of Pundim itself (which is 22,015 feet). This cliff is of black stratified rocks, sloping to the west, and probably striking north-west; permeated from top to bottom by veins of white granite, disposed in zigzag lines, which produce a contortion of the gneiss, and give it a marbled appearance. The same structure may be seen in miniature on the transported blocks which abound in the Sikkim rivers; where veins of finely grained granite are forced in all directions through the gneiss, and form parallel seams or beds between the laminæ of that rock, united by transverse seams, and crumpling up the gneiss itself, like the crushed leaves of a book. The summit of Pundim itself is all of white rock, rounded in shape, and forming a cap to the gneiss, which weathers into precipices.
A succession of ridges, 14,000 to 18,000 feet high, presented a line of precipices running south from Pundim for several miles: immense granite veins are exposed on their surfaces, and they are capped by stratified rocks, sloping to the east, and apparently striking to the north-west, which, being black, contrast strongly with the white granite beneath them: these ridges, instead of being round-topped, are broken into splintered crags, behind which rises the beautiful conical peak of Nursing, 19,139 feet above the sea, eight miles distant, and subtending an angle of 8° 30′.
At the foot of these precipices was a very conspicuous series of lofty moraines, round whose bases the Ratong wound; these appeared of much the same height, rising several hundred feet above the valley: they were comparatively level-topped, and had steep shelving rounded sides.
I have been thus particular in describing the upper Ratong valley, because it drains the south face of the loftiest mountain on the globe; and I have introduced angular heights, and been precise in my details, because the vagueness with which all terms are usually applied to the apparent altitude and steepness of mountains and precipices, is apt to give false impressions. It is essential to attend to such points where scenery of real interest and importance is to be described. It is customary to speak of peaks as towering in the air, which yet subtend an angle of very few degrees; of almost precipitous ascents, which, when measured, are found to be slopes of 18° or 20°; and of cliffs as steep and stupendous, which are inclined at a very moderate angle.
The effect of perspective is as often to deceive in details as to give truth to general impressions; and those accessories are sometimes wanting in nature, which, when supplied by art, give truth to the landscape. Thus, a streak of clouds adds height to a peak which should appear lofty, but which scarcely rises above the true horizon; and a belt of mist will sunder two snowy mountains which, though at very different distances, for want of a play of light and shade on their dazzling surfaces, and from the extreme transparency of the air in lofty regions, appear to be at the same distance from the observer.
The view to the southward from Mon Lepcha, including the country between the sea-like plains of India and the loftiest mountain on the globe, is very grand, and neither wanting in variety nor in beauty. From the deep valleys choked with tropical luxuriance to the scanty yak pasturage on the heights above, seems but a step at the first coup-d’oceil, but resolves itself on a closer inspection into five belts: 1, palm and plantain; 2, oak and laurel; 3, pine; 4, rhododendron and grass; and 5, rock and snow. From the bed of the Ratong, in which grow palms with screw-pine and plantain, it is only seven miles in a direct line to the perpetual ice. From the plains of India, or outer Himalaya, one may behold snowy peaks rise in the distance behind a foreground of tropical forest; here, on the contrary, all the intermediate phases of vegetation are seen at a glance. Except in the Himalaya this is no common phenomenon, and is owing to the very remarkable depth of the river-beds. That part of the valley of the Ratong where tropical vegetation ceases, is but 4000 feet above the sea, and though fully fifty miles as the crow flies (and perhaps 200 by the windings of the river) from the plains of India, is only eight in a straight line (and forty by the windings) from the snows which feed that river. In other words, the descent is so rapid, that in eight miles the Ratong waters every variety of vegetation, from the lichen of the poles to the palm of the tropics; whilst throughout the remainder of its mountain course, it falls from 4000 to 300 feet, flowing amongst tropical scenery, through a valley whose flanks rise from 5000 to 12,000 feet above its bed.
From Mon Lepcha we proceeded north-west towards Jongri, along a very open rounded bare mountain, covered with enormous boulders of gneiss, of which the subjacent rock is also composed. The soil is a thick clay full of angular stones, everywhere scooped out into little depressions which are the dry beds of pools, and are often strewed with a thin layer of pebbles. Black tufts of alpine aromatic rhododendrons of two kinds (R. anthopogon and setosum), with dwarf juniper, comprised all the conspicuous vegetation at this season.
After a two hours’ walk, keeping at 13,000 feet elevation, we sighted Jongri.[113] There were two stone huts on the bleak face of the spur, scarcely distinguishable at the distance of half a mile from the great blocks around them. To the north Gubroo rose in dismal grandeur, backed by the dazzling snows of Kubra, which now seemed quite near, its lofty top (alt. 24,005 feet) being only eight miles distant. Much snow lay on the ground in patches, and there were few remains of herbaceous vegetation; those I recognised were chiefly of poppy, Potentilla, gentian, geranium, fritillary, Umbelliferæ, grass, and sedges.
[113] I am assured by Capt. Sherwill, who, in 1852, proceeded along and surveyed the Nepal frontier beyond this point to Gubroo, that this is not Jongri, but Yangpoong. The difficulty of getting precise information, especially as to the names of seldom-visited spots, is very great. I was often deceived myself, undesignedly, I am sure, on the part of my informants; but in this case I have Dr. Campbell’s assurance, who has kindly investigated the subject, that there is no mistake on my part. Captain Sherwill has also kindly communicated to me a map of the head waters of the Rungbee, Yungya, and Yalloong rivers, of which, being more correct than my own, I have gladly availed myself for my map. Gubroo, he informs me, is 15,000 feet in altitude, and dips in a precipice 1000 feet high, facing Kubra, which prevented his exploring further north.
On our arrival at the huts the weather was still fine, with a strong north-west wind, which meeting the warm moist current from the Ratong valley, caused much precipitation of vapour. As I hoped to be able to visit the surrounding glaciers from this spot, I made arrangements for a stay of some days: giving up the only habitable hut to my people, I spread my blankets in a slope from its roof to the ground, building a little stone dyke round the skirts of my dwelling, and a fire-place in front.
Hence to Yalloong in Nepal, by the Kanglanamo pass, is two days’ march: the route crosses the Singalelah range at an elevation of about 15,000 feet, south of Kubra, and north of a mountain that forms a conspicuous feature south-west from Jongri, as a crest of black fingered peaks, tipped with snow.
It is difficult to conceive the amount of labour expended upon every pound of salt imported into this part of Sikkim from Tibet, and as an enumeration of the chief features of the routes it must follow, will give some idea of what the circuit of the loftiest mountain in the globe involves, I shall briefly allude to them; premising that the circuit of Mont Blanc may be easily accomplished in four days. The shortest route to Yoksun (the first village south of Kinchin) from the nearest Tibetan village north of that mountain, involves a detour of one-third of the circumference of Kinchin. It is evident that the most direct way must be that nearest the mountain-top, and therefore that which reaches the highest accessible elevation on its shoulders, and which, at the same time, dips into the shallowest valleys between those shoulders. The actual distance in a straight line is about fifty miles, from Yoksun to the mart at or near Tashirukpa.
The marches between them are as follows:—
1. To Yalloong two days; crossing Kanglanamo pass, 15,000 feet high.
3. To foot of Choonjerma pass, descending to 10,000 feet. 4. Cross Choonjerma pass, 15,260 feet, and proceed to Kambachen, 11,400 feet.
5. Cross Nango pass, 15,770, and camp on Yangma river, 11,000 feet.
6. Ascend to foot of Kanglachem pass, and camp at 15,000 feet.
7. Cross Kanglachem pass, probably 16,500 feet; and
8–10. It is said to be three marches hence to the Tibetan custom-house, and that two more snowy passes are crossed.
This allows no day of rest, and gives only five miles—as the crow flies—to be accomplished each day, but I assume fully fourteen of road distance; the labour spent in which would accomplish fully thirty over good roads. Four snowed passes at least are crossed, all above 15,000 feet, and after the first day the path does not descend below 10,000 feet. By this route about one-third of the circuit of Kinchinjunga is accomplished. Supposing the circuit were to be completed by the shortest practicable route, that is, keeping as near the summit as possible, the average time required for a man with his load would be upwards of a month.
To reach Tashirukpa by the eastern route from Yoksun, being a journey of about twenty-five days, requires a long detour to the southward and eastward, and afterwards the ascent of the Teesta valley, to Kongra Lama, and so north to the Tibetan Arun.
My first operation after encamping and arranging my instruments, was to sink the ground thermometer; but the earth being frozen for sixteen inches, it took four men several hours’ work with hammer and chisel, to penetrate so deep. There was much vegetable matter for the first eight or ten inches, and below that a fine red clay. I spent the afternoon, which was fine, in botanising. When the sun shone, the smell of the two rhododendrons was oppressive, especially as a little exertion at this elevation brings on headache. There were few mosses; but crustaceous lichens were numerous, and nearly all of them of Scotch, Alpine, European, and Arctic kinds. The names of these, given by the classical Linnæus and Wahlenberg, tell in some cases of their birth-places, in others of their hardihood, their lurid colours and weather-beaten aspects; such as tristis, gelida, glacialis, arctica, alpina, saxatilis, polaris, frigida, and numerous others equally familiar to the Scotch botanist. I recognised many as natives of the wild mountains of Cape Horn, and the rocks of the stormy Antarctic ocean; since visiting which regions I had not gathered them. The lichen called geographicus was most abundant, and is found to indicate a certain degree of cold in every latitude; descending to the level of the sea in latitude 52° north, and 50° south, but in lower latitudes only to be seen on mountains. It flourishes at 10,000 feet on the Himalaya, ascending thence to 18,000 feet. Its name, however, was not intended to indicate its wide range, but the curious maplike patterns which its yellow crust forms on the rocks.
Of the blocks of gneiss scattered over the Jongri spur, many are twenty feet in diameter. The ridge slopes gently south-west to the Choroong river, and more steeply north-east to the Ratong, facing Kinchin: it rises so very gradually to a peaked mountain between Jongri and Kubra, that it is not possible to account for the transport and deposit of these boulders by glaciers of the ordinary form, viz., by a stream of ice following the course of a valley; and we are forced to speculate upon the possibility of ice having capped the whole spur, and moved downwards, transporting blocks from the prominences on various parts of the spur.
The cutting up of the whole surface of this rounded mountain into little pools, now dry, of all sizes, from ten to about one hundred yards in circumference, is a very striking phenomenon. The streams flow in shallow transverse valleys, each passing through a succession of such pools, accompanying a step-like character of the general surface. The beds are stony, becoming more so where they enter the pools, upon several of the larger of which I observed curving ridges of large stones, radiating outwards on to their beds from either margin of the entering stream: more generally large stones were deposited opposite every embouchure.
This superficial sculpturing must have been a very recent operation; and the transport of the heavy stones opposite the entrance of the streams has been effected by ice, and perhaps by snow; just as the arctic ice strews the shores of the Polar ocean with rocks.
The weather had been threatening all day, northern and westerly currents contending aloft with the south-east trade-wind of Sikkim, and meeting in strife over the great upper valley of the Ratong. Stately masses of white cumuli wheeled round that gulf of glaciers, partially dissipating in an occasional snow-storm, but on the whole gradually accumulating.
On my arrival the thermometer was 32°, with a powerful sun shining, and it fell to 28° at 4 p.m., when the north wind set in. At sunset the moon rose through angry masses of woolly cirrus; its broad full orb threw a flood of yellow light over the serried tops south of Pundim; thence advancing obliquely towards Nursing, “it stood tip-toe” for a few minutes on that beautiful pyramid of snow, whence it seemed to take flight and mount majestically into mid-air, illuminating Kinchin, Pundim, and Kubra.
I sat at the entrance of my gipsy-like hut, anxiously watching the weather, and absorbed in admiration of the moonrise, from which my thoughts were soon diverted by its fading light as it entered a dense mass of mare’s-tail cirrus. It was very cold, and the stillness was oppressive. I had been urged not to attempt such an ascent in January, my provisions were scanty, firewood only to be obtained from some distance, the open undulating surface of Jongri was particularly exposed to heavy snow-drifts, and the path was, at the best, a scarcely perceptible track. I followed every change of the wind, every fluctuation of the barometer and thermometer, each accession of humidity, and the courses of the clouds aloft. At 7 p.m., the wind suddenly shifted to the west, and the thermometer instantly rose from 20° to 30°. After 8 p.m., the temperature fell again, and the wind drew round from west by south to north-east, when the fog cleared off. The barometer rose no more than it usually does towards 10 p.m., and though it clouded again, with the temperature at 17°, the wind seemed steady, and I went to bed with a relieved mind.
Jan. 10.—During the night the temperature fell to 11·2°, and at 6 a.m. was 19·8°, falling again to 17° soon after. Though clouds were rapidly coming up from the west and south-west, the wind remained northerly till 8 a.m., when it shifted to south-west, and the temperature rose to 25°. As it continued fine, with the barometer high, I ventured on a walk towards Gubroo, carefully taking bearings of my position. I found a good many plants in a rocky valley close to that mountain, which I in vain attempted to ascend. The air was 30°, with a strong and damp south-west wind, and the cold was so piercing, that two lads who were with me, although walking fast, became benumbed, and could not return without assistance. At 11 a.m., a thick fog obliged us to retrace our steps: it was followed by snow in soft round pellets like sago, that swept across the hard ground. During the afternoon it snowed unceasingly, the wind repeatedly veering round the compass, always from west to east by south, and so by north to west again. The flakes were large, soft, and moist with the south wind, and small, hard, and dry with the north. Glimpses of blue sky were constantly seen to the south, under the gloomy canopy above, but they augured no change. As darkness came on, the temperature fell to 15°, and it snowed very hard; at 6 p.m., it was 11°, but rose afterwards to 18°.
The night was very cold and wintry: I sat for some hours behind a blanket screen (which had to be shifted every few minutes) at my tent-door, keeping up a sulky fire, and peering through the snow for signs of improvement, but in vain. The clouds were not dense, for the moon’s light was distinct, shining on the glittering snow-flakes that fell relentlessly: my anxiety was great, and I could not help censuring myself severely for exposing a party to so great danger at such a season. I found comfort in the belief that no idle curiosity had prompted me, and that with a good motive and a strong prestige of success, one can surmount a host of difficulties. Still the snow fell; and my heart sank, as my fire declined, and the flakes sputtered on the blackening embers; my little puppy, who had gambolled all day amongst the drifting white pellets, now whined, and crouched under my thick woollen cloak; the inconstant searching wind drifted the snow into the tent, whose roof so bagged in with the accumulation that I had to support it with sticks, and dreaded being smothered, if the weight should cause it to sink upon my bed during my sleep. The increasing cold drove me, however, to my blankets, and taking the precaution of stretching a tripod stand over my head, so as to leave a breathing hole, by supporting the roof if it fell in, I slept soundly, with my dog at my feet.
At sunrise the following morning the sky was clear, with a light north wind; about two feet of snow had fallen, the drifts were deep, and all trace of the path obliterated. The minimum thermometer had fallen to 3·7°, the temperature rose to 27° at 9 a.m., after which the wind fell, and with it the thermometer to 18°. Soon, however, southerly breezes set in, bringing up heavy masses of clouds.
My light-hearted companions cheerfully prepared to leave the ground; they took their appointed loads without a murmur, and sought protection for their eyes from the glare of the newly fallen snow, some with as much of my crape veil as I could spare, others with shades of brown paper, or of hair from the yaks’ tails, whilst a few had spectacle-shades of woven hair; and the Lepchas loosened their pigtails, and combed their long hair over their eyes and faces. It is from fresh-fallen snow alone that much inconvenience is felt; owing, I suppose, to the light reflected from the myriads of facets which the crystals of snow present. I have never suffered inconvenience in crossing beds of old snow, or glaciers with weathered surfaces, which absorb a great deal of light, and reflect comparatively little, and that little coloured green or blue.
The descent was very laborious, especially through the several miles of bush and rock which lie below the summit: so that, although we started at 10 a.m., it was dark by the time we reached Buckeem, where we found two lame coolies, whom we had left on our way up, and who were keeping up a glorious fire for our reception.