Chapter XVI
Ratong river below Mon Lepcha—Ferns—Vegetation of Yoksun, tropical—Araliaceæ, fodder for cattle—Rice-paper plant—Geology of Yoksun—Lake—Old temples—Funereal cypresses—Gigantic chait—Altars—Songboom—Weather—Catsuperri—Velocity of Ratong—Worship at Catsuperri lake—Scenery—Willow—Lamas and ecclesiastical establishments of Sikkim—Tengling—Changachelling temples and monks—Portrait of myself on walls—Block of mica-schist—Lingcham Kajee asks for spectacles—Hee-hill—Arrive at Little Rungeet—At Dorjiling—Its deserted and wintry appearance.
On the following day we marched to Yoksun: the weather was fair, though it was evidently snowing on the mountains above. I halted at the Ratong river, at the foot of Mon Lepcha, where I found its elevation to be 7,150 feet; its edges were frozen, and the temperature of the water 36°; it is here a furious torrent flowing between gneiss rocks which dip south-south-east, and is flanked by flat-topped beds of boulders, gravel and sand, twelve to fourteen feet thick. Its vegetation resembles that of Dorjiling, but is more alpine, owing no doubt to the proximity of Kinchinjunga. The magnificent Rhododendron argenteum was growing on its banks. On the other hand, I was surprised to see a beautiful fern (a Trichomanes, very like the Irish one) which is not found at Dorjiling. The same day, at about the same elevation, I gathered sixty species of fern, many of very tropical forms.[114] No doubt the range of such genera is extended in proportion to the extreme damp and equable climate, here, as about Dorjiling. Tree-ferns are however absent, and neither plantains, epiphytical Orchideæ, nor palms, are so abundant, or ascend so high as on the outer ranges. About Yoksun itself, which occupies a very warm sheltered flat, many tropical genera occur, such as tall bamboos of two kinds, grasses allied to the sugar-cane, scarlet Erythrina, and various Araliaceæ, amongst which was one species whose pith was of so curious a structure, that I had no hesitation in considering the then unknown Chinese substance called rice-paper to belong to a closely allied plant.[115]
[114] They consisted of the above-mentioned Trichomanes, three Hymenophyllæ, Vittaria, Pleopeltis, and Marattia, together with several Selaginellas.
[115] The Chinese rice-paper has long been known to be cut from cylinders of pith which has always a central hollow chamber, divided into compartments by septa or excessively thin plates. It is only within the last few months that my supposition has been confirmed, by my father’s receiving from China, after many years of correspondence, specimens of the rice-paper plant itself, which very closely resemble, in botanical characters, as well as in outward appearance of size and habit, the Sikkim plant.
The natives collect the leaves of many Aralias as fodder for cattle, for which purpose they are of the greatest service in a country where grass for pasture is so scarce; this is the more remarkable, since they belong to the natural family of ivy, which is usually poisonous; the use of this food, however, gives a peculiar taste to the butter. In other parts of Sikkim, fig-leaves are used for the same purpose, and branches of a bird-cherry (Prunus), a plant also of a very poisonous family, abounding in prussic acid.
We were received with great kindness by the villagers of Yoksun, who had awaited our return with some anxiety, and on hearing of our approach had collected large supplies of food; amongst other things were tares (called by the Lepchas “Kullai”), yams (“Book”), and a bread made by bruising together damp maize and rice into tough thin cakes (“Ketch-ung tapha”). The Lamas of Doobdi were especially civil, having a favour to ask, which was that I would intercede with Dr. Campbell to procure the permission of the Nepalese to reopen the Kanglanamo pass, and thus give some occupation to their herds of yaks, which were now wandering idly about.
I botanized for two days on the Yoksun flat, searching for evidence of lacustrine strata or moraines, being more than ever convinced by the views I had obtained of this place from Mon Lepcha, that its uniformity of surface was due to water action. It is certainly the most level area of its size that I know of in Sikkim, though situated in one of the deepest valleys, and surrounded on almost all sides by very steep mountains; and it is far above the flat gravel terraces of the present river-beds. I searched the surface of the flat for gravel beds in vain, for though it abounds in depressions that must have formerly been lake-beds, and are now marshes in the rainy season, these were all floored with clay. Along the western edge, where the descent is very steep for 1,800 feet to the Ratong, I found no traces of stratified deposits, though the spurs which projected from it were often flattened at top. The only existing lake has sloping clay banks, covered with spongy vegetable mould; it has no permanent affluent or outlet, its present drainage being subterranean, or more probably by evaporation; but there is an old water-channel several feet above its level. It is eighty to a hundred yards across, and nearly circular; its depth three or four feet, increased to fifteen or sixteen in the rains; like all similar pools in Sikkim, it contains little or no animal life at this season, and I searched in vain for shells, insects, or frogs. All around were great blocks of gneiss, some fully twelve feet square.
The situation of this lake is very romantic, buried in a tall forest of oaks and laurels, and fringed by wild camellia shrubs; the latter are not the leafy, deep green, large-blossomed plants of our greenhouses, but twiggy bushes with small scattered leaves, and little yellowish flowers like those of the tea-plant. The massive walls of a ruined temple rise close to the water, which looks like the still moat of a castle: beside it are some grand old funereal cypresses, with ragged scattered branches below, where they struggle for light in the dense forest, but raising their heads aloft as bright green pyramids.
After some difficulty I found the remains of a broad path that divided into two; one of them led to a second ruined temple, fully a mile off, and the other I followed to a grove, in which was a gigantic chait; it was a beautiful lane throughout, bordered with bamboo, brambles, gay-flowered Melastomaceæ like hedge-roses, and scarlet Erythrina: there were many old mendongs and chaits on the way, which I was always careful to leave on the right hand in passing, such being the rule among Boodhists, the same which ordains that the praying-cylinder or “Mani” be made to revolve in a direction against the sun’s motion.
This great chait is the largest in Sikkim; it is called “Nirbogong,” and appears to be fully forty feet high; facing it is a stone altar about fifteen feet long and four broad, and behind this again is a very curious erection called “Song-boom,” used for burning juniper as incense; it resembles a small smelting furnace, and consists of an elongated conical stone building eight feet high, raised on a single block; it is hollow, and divided into three stories or chambers; in the lower of which is a door, by which fuel is placed inside, and the smoke ascending through holes in the upper slabs, escapes by lateral openings from the top compartment. These structures are said to be common in Tibet, but I saw no other in Sikkim.
During my stay at Yoksun, the weather was very cold, especially at night, considering the elevation (5,600 feet): the mean temperature was 39°, the extremes being 19·2° and 60°; and even at 8 a.m. the thermometer, laid on the frosty grass, stood at 20°; temperatures which are rare at Dorjiling, 1,500 feet higher. I could not but regard with surprise such half tropical genera as perennial-leaved vines, Saccharum, Erythrina, large bamboos, Osbeckia and cultivated millet, resisting such low temperatures.[116]
[116] This is no doubt due to the temperature of the soil being always high: I did not sink a thermometer at Yoksun, but from observations taken at similar elevations, the temperature of the earth, at three feet depth, may be assumed to be 55°.
On the 14th January I left Yoksun for the lake and temples of Catsuperri, the former of which is by much the largest in Sikkim. After a steep descent of 1800 feet, we reached the Ratong, where its bed is only 3,790 feet above the sea; it is here a turbulent stream, twelve yards across, with the usual features of gravel terraces, huge boulders of gneiss and some of the same rock in situ, striking north-east. Some idea of its velocity may be formed from the descent it makes from the foot of Mon Lepcha, where the elevation of its bed was 7,150 feet, giving a fall of 3,350 feet in only ten miles.
Hence I ascended a very steep spur, through tropical vegetation, now become so familiar to me that I used to count the number of species belonging to the different large natural orders, as I went along. I gathered only thirty-five ferns at these low elevations, in the same space as produces from fifty to sixty in the more equable and humid regions of 6000 feet; grasses on the other hand were much more numerous. The view of the flat of Yoksun from Lungschung village, opposite to it, and on about the same level, is curious; as is that of the hamlet of Lathiang on the same side, which I have before noticed as being placed on a very singular flat shelf above the Ratong, and is overhung by rocks.
Ascending very steeply for several thousand feet, we reached a hollow on the Catsuperri spur, beyond which the lake lies buried in a deep forest. A Lama from the adjacent temple accompanied us, and I found my people affecting great solemnity as they approached its sacred bounds; they incessantly muttered “Om mani,” etc., kotowed to trees and stones, and hung bits of rag on the bushes. A pretence of opposing our progress was made by the priest, who of course wanted money; this I did not appear to notice, and after a steep descent, we were soon on the shores of what is, for Sikkim, a grand sheet of water, (6,040 feet above the sea), without any apparent outlet: it may be from three to five hundred yards across in the rains, but was much less now, and was bordered by a broad marsh of bog moss (Sphagnum), in which were abundance of Azolla, colouring the waters red, and sedges. Along the banks were bushes of Rhododendron barbatum and Berberis insignis,[117] but the mass of the vegetation was similar to that of Dorjiling.
[117] This magnificent new species has not been introduced into England; it forms a large bush, with deep-green leaves seven inches long, and bunches of yellow flowers.
We crossed the marsh to the edge of the lake by a rude paved way of decaying logs, through which we often plunged up to our knees. The Lama had come provided with a piece of bark, shaped like a boat, some juniper incense and a match-box, with which he made a fire, and put it in the boat, which he then launched on the lake as a votive offering to the presiding deity. It was a dead calm, but the impetus he gave to the bark shot it far across the lake, whose surface was soon covered with a thick cloud of white smoke. Taking a rupee from me, the priest then waved his arm aloft, and pretended to throw the money into the water, singing snatches of prayers in Tibetan, and at times shrieking at the top of his voice to the Dryad who claims these woods and waters as his own. There was neither bird, beast, nor insect to be seen, and the scenery was as impressive to me, as the effect of the simple service was upon my people, who prayed with redoubled fervour, and hung more rags on the bushes.
I need hardly say that this invocation of the gods of the woods and waters forms no part of Lama worship; but the Lepchas are but half Boodhists; in their hearts they dread the demons of the grove, the lake, the snowy mountain and the torrent, and the crafty Lama takes advantage of this, modifies his practices to suit their requirements, and is content with the formal recognition of the spiritual supremacy of the church. This is most remarkably shown in their acknowledgment of the day on which offerings had been made from time immemorial by the pagan Lepchas to the genius of Kinchinjunga, by holding it as a festival of the church throughout Sikkim.[118]
The two Catsuperri temples occupy a spur 445 feet above the lake, and 6,485 feet above the sea; they are poor, and only remarkable for a miserable weeping-willow tree planted near them, said to have been brought from Lhassa. The monks were very civil to me, and offered amongst other things a present of excellent honey. One was an intelligent man, and gave me much information: he told me that there were upwards of twenty religious establishments in Sikkim, containing more than 1000 priests. These have various claims upon the devout: thus, Tassiding, Doobdi, Changachelling, and Pemiongchi, are celebrated for their antiquity, and the latter also for being the residence of the head Lama; Catsuperri for its lake; Raklang for its size, etc. All are under one spiritual head, who is the Tupgain Lama, or eldest son of the Rajah; and who resides at the Phadong convent, near Tumloong: the Lama of Pemiongchi is, however, the most highly respected, on account of his age, position, and sanctity. Advancement in the hierarchy is dependent chiefly on interest, but indirectly on works also; pilgrimages to Lhassa and Teshoo Loombo are the highest of these, and it is clearly the interest of the supreme pontiffs of those ecclesiastical capitals to encourage such, and to intimate to the Sikkim authorities, the claims those who perform them have for preferment. Dispensations for petty offences are granted to Lamas of low degree and monks, by those of higher station, but crimes against the church are invariably referred to Tibet, and decided there.
[118] On that occasion an invocation to the mountain is chanted by priests and people in chorus. Like the Lama’s address to the genius of Catsuperri lake, its meaning, if it ever had any, is not now apparent. It runs thus:— “Kanchin-jinga, Pemi Kadup Gnetche Tangla, Dursha tember Zu jinga Pemsum Serkiem Dischze Kubra Kanchin tong.” This was written for me by Dr. Campbell, who, like myself, has vainly sought its solution; it is probably a mixture of Tibetan and Lepcha, both as much corrupted as the celebrated “Om mani padmi boom,” which is universally pronounced by Lepchas “Menny pemmy boom.” This reminds me that I never got a solution of this sentence from a Lama, of whatever rank or learning; and it was only after incessant inquiry, during a residence of many years in Nepal, that Mr. Hodgson at last procured the interpretation, or rather paraphrase: “Hail to him (Sakya) of the lotus and the jewel,” which is very much the same as M. Klaproth and other authorities have given.
The election to the Sikkim Lamaseries is generally conducted on the principle of self-government, but Pemiongchi and some others are often served by Lamas appointed from Tibet, or ordained there, at some of the great convents. I never heard of an instance of any Sikkim Lama arriving at such sanctity as to be considered immortal, and to reappear after death in another individual, nor is there any election of infants. All are of the Ningma, Dookpa, or Shammar sect, and are distinguished by their red mitres; they were once dominant throughout Tibet, but after many wars[119] with the yellow-caps, they were driven from that country, and took refuge principally in the Himalaya. The Bhotan or Dhurma[120] Rajah became the spiritual head of this sect, and, as is well known, disputes the temporal government also of his country with the Deva Rajah, who is the hereditary temporal monarch, and never claims spiritual jurisdiction. I am indebted to Dr. Campbell for a copy and translation of the Dhurma Rajah’s great seal, containing the attributes of his spirituality, a copy of which I have appended to the end of this chapter.
[119] The following account of the early war between the red and the yellow-mitred Lamas was given me by Tchebu Lama:—For twenty-five generations the red-cape (Dookpa or Ningma) prevailed in Tibet, when they split into two sects, who contended for supreme power; the Lama of Phado, who headed the dissenters, and adopted a yellow mitre, being favoured by the Emperor of China, to whom reference was made. A persecution of the red Lamas followed, who were caught by the yellow-caps, and their mitres plunged into dyeing vats kept always ready at the Lamaseries. The Dookpa, however, still held Teshoo Loombo, and applied to the Sokpo (North Tibet) Lamas for aid, who bringing horses and camels, easily prevailed over the Gelookpa or yellow sect, but afterwards treacherously went over to them, and joined them in an attack on Teshoo Loombo, which was plundered and occupied by the Gelookpas. The Dookpa thereafter took refuge in Sikkim and Bhotan, wbence the Bhotan Rajah became their spiritual chief under the name of Dhurma Rajah, and is now the representative of that creed. Goorucknath is still the Dookpa’s favourite spiritual deity of the older creed, which is, however, no longer in the ascendant. The Dalai Lama of Teshoo Loombo is a Gelookpa, as is the Rimbochay Lama, and the Potala Lama of Lhassa, according to Tchebu Lama, but Turner (“Travels in Tibet,” p. 315) says the contrary; the Gelookpa consider Sakya Thoba (or Tsongkaba) alias Mahamouni, as their great avatar.
[120] Bhotan is generally known as the Dhurma country. See note, page 136.
The internal organisation of the different monastic establishments is very simple. The head or Teshoo Lama[121] rules supreme; then come the monks and various orders of priests, and then those who are candidates for orders, and dependents, both lay-brothers and slaves: there are a few nunneries in Sikkim, and the nuns are all relatives or connections of the Rajah, his sister is amongst them. During the greater part of the year, all lead a more or less idle life; the dependents being the most occupied in carrying wood and water, cultivating the land, etc.
[121] I have been informed by letters from Dr. Campbell that the Pemiongchi Lama is about to remove the religious capital of Sikkim to Dorjiling, and build there a grand temple and monastery; this will be attractive to visitors, and afford the means of extending our knowledge of East Tibet.
The lay-brothers are often skilful workmen, and are sometimes lent or hired out as labourers, especially as housebuilders and decorators. No tax of any kind is levied on the church, which is frequently very rich in land, flocks, and herds, and in contributions from the people: land is sometimes granted by the Rajah, but is oftener purchased by the priests, or willed, or given by the proprietor. The services, to which I have already alluded, are very irregularly performed; in most temples only on festival days, which correspond to the Tibetan ones so admirably described in MM. Huc and Gabet’s narrative; in a few, however, service is performed daily, especially in such as stand near frequented roads, and hence reap the richest harvest.
Like all the natives of Tibet and Sikkim, the priests are intolerably filthy; in some cases so far carrying out their doctrines as not even to kill the vermin with which they swarm. All are nominally bound to chastity, but exemptions in favour of Lamas of wealth, rank, or power, are granted by the supreme pontiffs, both in Tibet and Sikkim. I constantly found swarms of children about the Lamaseries, who were invariably called nephews and nieces.
Descending from the Catsuperri temples, I encamped at the village of Tengling (elevation 5,257 feet), where I was waited upon by a bevy of forty women, Lepchas and Sikkim Bhoteeas, accompanied by their children, and bringing presents of fowls, rice and vegetables, and apologising for the absence of their male relatives, who were gone to carry tribute to the Rajah. Thence I marched to Changachelling, first descending to the Tengling river, which divides the Catsuperri from the Molli ridge, and which I crossed.
Tree-ferns here advance further north than in any other part of Sikkim. I did not visit the Molli temples, but crossed the spur of that name, to the Rungbee river, whose bed is 3,300 feet above the sea; thence I ascended upwards of 3,500 feet to the Changachelling temples, passing Tchongpong village. The ridge on which both Pemiongchi and Changachelling are built, is excessively narrow at top; it is traversed by a “via Sacra,” connecting these two establishments; this is a pretty wooded walk, passing mendongs and chaits hoary with lichens and mosses; to the north the snows of Kinchinjunga are seen glimmering between the trunks of oaks, laurels, and rhododendrons, while to the south the Sinchul and Dorjiling spurs shut out the view of the plains of India.
Changachelling temples and chaits crown a beautiful rocky eminence on the ridge, their roofs, cones and spires peeping through groves of bamboo, rhododendrons, and arbutus; the ascent is by broad flights of steps cut in the mica-slate rocks, up which shaven and girdled monks, with rosaries and long red gowns, were dragging loads of bamboo stems, that produced a curious rattling noise. At the summit there is a fine temple, with the ruins of several others, and of many houses: the greater part of the principal temple, which is two-storied and divided into several compartments, is occupied by families. The monks were busy repairing the part devoted to worship, which consists of a large chamber and vestibule of the usual form: the outside walls are daubed red, with a pigment of burnt felspathic clay, which is dug hard by. Some were painting the vestibule with colours brought from Lhassa, where they had been trained to the art. Amongst other figures was one playing on a guitar, a very common symbol in the vestibules of Sikkim temples: I also saw an angel playing on the flute, and a snake-king offering fruit to a figure in the water, who was grasping a serpent. Amongst the figures I was struck by that of an Englishman, whom, to my amusement, and the limner’s great delight, I recognised as myself. I was depicted in a flowered silk coat instead of a tartan shooting jacket, my shoes were turned up at the toes, and I had on spectacles and a tartar cap, and was writing notes in a book. On one side a snake-king was politely handing me fruit, and on the other a horrible demon was writhing.
A crowd had collected to see whether I should recognise myself, and when I did so, the merriment was extreme. They begged me to send them a supply of vermilion, goldleaf, and brushes; our so called camel’s-hair pencils being much superior to theirs, which are made of marmot’s hair.
I was then conducted to a house, where I found salted and buttered tea and Murwa beer smoking in hospitable preparation. As usual, the house was of wood, and the inhabited apartments above the low basement story were approached by an outside ladder, like a Swiss cottage: within were two rooms floored with earth; the inner was small, and opened on a verandah that faced Kinchinjunga, whence the keen wind whistled through the apartment.
The head Lama, my jolly fat friend of the 20th of December, came to breakfast with me, followed by several children, nephews and nieces he said; but they were uncommonly like him for such a distant relationship, and he seemed extremely fond of them, and much pleased when I stuffed them with sugar.
Changachelling hill is remarkable for having on its summit an immense tabular mass of chlorite slate, resting apparently horizontally on variously inclined rocks of the same: it is quite flat-topped, ten to twelve yards each way, and the sides are squared by art; the country people attribute its presence here to a miracle.
The view of the Kinchin range from this spot being one of the finest in Sikkim, and the place itself being visible from Dorjiling, I took a very careful series of bearings, which, with those obtained at Pemiongchi, were of the utmost use in improving my map, which was gradually progressing. To my disappointment I found that neither priest nor people knew the name of a single snowy mountain. I also asked in vain for some interpretation of the lines I have quoted at page 365; they said they were Lepcha worship, and that they only used them for the gratification of the people, on the day of the great festival of Kinchinjunga.
Hence I descended to the Kulhait river, on my route back to Dorjiling, visiting my very hospitable tippling friend, the Kajee of Lingcham, on the way down: he humbly begged me to get him a pair of spectacles, for no other object than to look wise, as he had the eyes of a hawk; he told me that mine drew down universal respect in Sikkim, and that I had been drawn with them on, in the temple at Changachelling; and that a pair would not only wonderfully become him, but afford him the most pleasing recollections of myself. Happily I had the means of gratifying him, and have since been told that he wears them on state occasions.
I encamped by the river, 3,160 feet above the sea, amongst figs and plantains, on a broad terrace of pebbles, boulders and sand, ten feet above the stream; the rocks in the latter were covered with a red conferva. The sand on the banks was disposed in layers, alternately white and red, the white being quartz, and the red pulverised garnets. The arranging of these sand-bands by the water must be due to the different specific gravities of the garnet and quartz; the former being lighter, is lifted by the current on to the surface of the quartz, and left there when the waters retire.
On the next day I ascended Hee hill, crossed it at an elevation of 7,290 feet, and camped on the opposite side at 6,680 feet, in a dense forest. The next march was still southward to the little Rungeet guard-house, below Dorjiling spur, which I reached after a fatiguing walk amidst torrents of rain. The banks of the little Rungeet river, which is only 1,670 feet above the sea, are very flat and low, with broad terraces of pebbles and shingle, upon which are huge gneiss boulders, fully 200 feet above the stream.
On the 19th of January, I ascended the Tukvor spur to Dorjiling, and received a most hospitable welcome from my friend Mr. Muller, now almost the only European inhabitant of the place; Mr. Hodgson having gone down on a shooting excursion in the Terai, and Dr. Campbell being on duty on the Bhotan frontier. The place looked what it really was—wholly deserted. The rain I had experienced in the valley, had here been snow, and the appearance of the broad snowed patches clear of trees, and of the many houses without smoke or inhabitant, and the tall scattered trees with black bark and all but naked branches, was dismal in the extreme. The effect was heightened by an occasional Hindoo, who flitted here and there along the road, crouching and shivering, with white cotton garments and bare legs.
The delight of my Lepcha attendants at finding themselves safely at home again, knew no bounds; and their parents waited on me with presents, and other tokens of their goodwill and gratitude. I had no lack of volunteers for a similar excursion in the following season, though with their usual fickleness, more than half failed me, long before the time arrived for putting their zeal to the proof.
I am indebted to Dr. Campbell for the accompanying impression and description of the seal of the Dhurma Rajah, or sovereign pontiff of Bhotan, and spiritual head of the whole sect of the Dookpa, or red-mitred Lama Boodhists. The translations were made by Aden Tchehu Lama, who accompanied us into Sikkim in 1849, and I believe they are quite correct. The Tibetan characters run from left to right. The seal of the Dhurma Rajah is divided into a centre portion and sixteen rays. In the centre is the word Dookyin, which means “The Dookpa Creed”; around the “Dookyin” are sixteen similar letters, meaning “I,” or “I am.” The sixteen radial compartments contain his titles and attributes, thus, commencing from the centre erect one, and passing round from left to right:—
1. I am the Spiritual and Temporal Chief of the Realm. 2. The Defender of the Faith. 3. Equal to Saruswati in learning. 4. Chief of all the Boodhs. 5. Head expounder of the Shasters. 6. Caster out of devils. 7. The most learned in the Holy Laws. 8. An Avatar of God (or, by God’s will). 9. Absolver of sins. 10. I am above all the Lamas of the Dookpa Creed. 11. I am of the best of all Religions—the Dookpa. 12. The punisher of unbelievers. 13. Unequalled in expounding the Shasters. 14. Unequalled in holiness and wisdom. 15. The head (or fountain) of all Religious Knowledge. 16. The Enemy of all false Avatars.
XVII. EXCURSION TO TERAI
Dispatch collections—Acorns—Heat—Punkabaree—Bees—Vegetation—Haze—Titalya— Earthquake—Proceed to Nepal frontier—Terai, geology of—Physical features of Himalayan valleys—Elephants, purchase of, etc.—Riverbeds—Mechi river—Return to Titalya—Leave for Teesta—Climate of plains—Jeelpigoree—Cooches—Alteration in the appearance of country by fires, etc.—Grasses—Bamboos—Cottages—Rajah of Cooch Behar—Condition of people—Hooli festival—Ascend Teesta—Canoes—Cranes—Forest—Baikant-pore—Rummai—Religion—Plants at foot of mountains—Exit of Teesta—Canoe voyage down to Rangamally—English genera of plants—Birds—Beautiful Scenery—Botanizing on elephants—Willow—Siligoree—Cross Terai—Geology—Iron—Lohar-ghur—Coal and sandstone beds—Mechi fisherman—Hailstorm—Ascent to Khersiong—To Dorjiling—Vegetation—Geology—Folded quartz-beds—Spheres of feldspar—Lime deposits.
Having arranged the collections (amounting to eighty loads) made during 1848, they were conveyed by coolies to the foot of the hills, where carts were provided to carry them five days’ journey to the Mahanuddy river, which flows into the Ganges, whence they were transported by water to Calcutta.
On the 27th of February, I left Dorjiling to join Mr. Hodgson, at Titalya on the plains. The weather was raw, cold, and threatening: snow lay here and there at 7000 feet, and all vegetation was very backward, and wore a wintry garb. The laurels, maples, and deciduous-leaved oaks, hydrangea and cherry, were leafless, but the abundance of chesnuts and evergreen oaks, rhododendrons, Aucuba, Linonia, and other shrubs, kept the forest well clothed. The oaks had borne a very unusual number of acorns during the last season, which were now falling, and strewing the road in some places so abundantly, that it was hardly safe to ride down hill.
The plains of Bengal were all but obscured by a dense haze, partly owing to a peculiar state of the atmosphere that prevails in the dry months, and partly to the fires raging in the Terai forest, from which white wreaths of smoke ascended, stretching obliquely for miles to the eastward, and filling the air with black particles of grass-stems, carried 4000 feet aloft by the heated ascending currents that impinge against the flanks of the mountains.
In the tropical region the air was scented with the white blossoms of the Vitex Agnus-castus, which grew in profusion by the road-side; but the forest, which had looked so gigantic on my arrival at the mountains the previous year, appeared small after the far more lofty and bulky oaks and pines of the upper regions of the Himalaya.
The evening was sultry and close, the heated surface of the earth seemed to load the surrounding atmosphere with warm vapours, and the sensation, as compared with the cool pure air of Dorjiling, was that of entering a confined tropical harbour after a long sea-voyage.
I slept in the little bungalow of Punkabaree, and was wakened next morning by sounds to which I had long been a stranger, the voices of innumerable birds, and the humming of great bees that bore large holes for their dwellings in the beams and rafters of houses: never before had I been so forcibly struck with the absence of animal life in the regions of the upper Himalaya.
Breakfasting early, I pursued my way in the so-called cool of the morning, but this was neither bright nor fresh; the night having been hazy, there had been no terrestrial radiation, and the earth was dusty and parched; while the sun rose through a murky yellowish atmosphere with ill-defined orb. Thick clouds of smoke pressed upon the plains, and the faint easterly wind wafted large flakes of grass charcoal sluggishly through the air.
Vegetation was in great beauty, though past its winter prime. The tropical forest of India has two flowering seasons; one in summer, of the majority of plants; and the other in winter, of Acanthaceæ, Bauhinia, Dillenia, Bombax, etc. Of these the former are abundant, and render the jungle gay with large and delicate white, red, and purple blossoms. Coarse, ill-favoured vultures wheeled through the air, languid Bengalees had replaced the active mountaineers, jackal-like curs of low degree teemed at every village, and ran howling away from the onslaught of my mountain dog; and the tropics, with all their beauty of flower and genial warmth, looked as forbidding and unwholesome as they felt oppressive to a frame that had so long breathed the fresh mountain air.
Mounted on a stout pony, I enjoyed my scamper of sixteen miles over the wooded plains and undulating gravelly slopes of the Terai, intervening between the foot of the mountains and Siligoree bungalow, where I rested for an hour. In the afternoon I rode on leisurely to Titalya, sixteen miles further, along the banks of the Mahanuddy, the atmosphere being so densely hazy, that objects a few miles off were invisible, and the sun quite concealed, though its light was so powerful that no part of the sky could be steadily gazed upon. This state of the air is very curious, and has met with various attempts at explanation,[122] all unsatisfactory to me: it accompanies great heat, dryness, and elasticity of the suspended vapours, and is not affected by wind. During the afternoon the latter blew with violence, but being hot and dry, brought no relief to my still unacclimated frame. My pony alone enjoyed the freedom of the boundless plains, and the gallop or trot being fatiguing in the heat, I tried in vain to keep him at a walk; his spirits did not last long, however, for he flagged after a few days’ tropical heat. My little dog had run thirty miles the day before, exclusive of all the detours he had made for his own enjoyment, and he flagged so much after twenty more this day, that I had to take him on my saddle-bow, where, after licking his hot swollen feet, he fell fast asleep, in spite of the motion.
[122] Dr. M‘Lelland (“Calcutta Journal of Natural History,” vol. i, p. 52), attributes the haze of the atmosphere during the north-west winds of this season, wholly to suspended earthy particles. But the haze is present even in the calmest weather, and extreme dryness is in all parts of the world usually accompanied by an obscure horizon. Captain Campbell (“Calcutta Journal of Natural History,” vol. ii, p. 44.) also objects to Dr. M‘Clelland’s theory, citing those parts of Southern India which are least likely to be visited by dust-storms, as possessing an equally hazy atmosphere; and further denies its being influenced by the hygrometric state of the atmosphere.
After leaving the wooded Terai at Siligoree, trees became scarce, and clumps of bamboos were the prevalent features; these, with an occasional banyan, peepul, or betel-nut palm near the villages, were the only breaks on the distant horizon. A powerfully scented Clerodendron, and an 0sbeckia gay with blossoms like dog-roses, were abundant; the former especially under trees, where the seeds are dropped by birds.
At Titalya bungalow, I received a hearty welcome from Mr. Hodgson, and congratulations on the success of my Nepal journey, which afforded a theme for many conversations.
In the evening we had three sharp jerking shocks of an earthquake in quick succession, at 9.8 p.m., appearing to come up from the southward: they were accompanied by a hollow rumbling sound like that of a waggon passing over a wooden bridge. The shock was felt strongly at Dorjiling, and registered by Mr. Muller at 9.10 p.m.: we had accurately adjusted our watches (chronometers) the previous morning, and the motion may therefore fairly be assumed to have been transmitted northwards through the intervening distance of forty miles, in two minutes. Both Mr. Muller and Mr. Hodgson had noted a much more severe shock at 6.10 p.m. the previous evening, which I, who was walking down the mountain, did not experience; this caused a good deal of damage at Dorjiling, in cracking well-built walls. Earthquakes are frequent all along the Himalaya, and are felt far in Tibet; they are, however, most common towards the eastern and western extremities of India; owing in the former case to the proximity of the volcanic forces in the bay of Bengal. Cutch and Scinde, as is well known, have suffered severely on many occasions, and in several of them the motion has been propagated through Affghanistan and Little Tibet, to the heart of Central Asia.[123]
[123] See “Wood’s Travels to the Oxus.”
On the morning of the 1st of March, Dr. Campbell arrived at the bungalow, from his tour of inspection along the frontier of Bhotan and the Rungpore district; and we accompanied him hence along the British and Sikkim frontier, as far west as the Mechi river, which bounds Nepal on the east.
Terai is a name loosely applied to a tract of country at the very foot of the Himalaya: it is Persian, and signifies damp. Politically, the Terai generally belongs to the hill-states beyond it; geographically, it should appertain to the plains of India; and geologically, it is a sort of neutral country, being composed neither of the alluvium of the plains, nor of the rocks of the hills, but for the most part of alternating beds of sand, gravel, and boulders brought from the mountains. Botanically it is readily defined as the region of forest-trees; amongst which the Sal, the most valuable of Indian timber, is conspicuous in most parts, though not now in Sikkim, where it has been destroyed. The Terai soil is generally light, dry, and gravelly (such as the Sal always prefers), and varies in breadth, from ten miles, along the Sikkim frontier, to thirty and more on the Nepalese. In the latter country it is called the Morung, and supplies Sal and Sissoo timber for the Calcutta market, the logs being floated down the Konki and Cosi rivers to the Ganges. The gravel-beds extend uninterruptedly upon the plains for fully twenty miles south of the Sikkim mountains, the gravel becoming smaller as the distance increases, and large blocks of stone not being found beyond a few miles from the rocks of the Himalaya itself, even in the beds of rivers, however large and rapid. Throughout its breadth this formation is conspicuously cut into flat-topped terraces, flanking the spurs of the mountains, at elevations varying from 250 to nearly 1000 feet above the sea. These terraces are of various breadth and length, the smallest lying uppermost, and the broadest flanking the rivers below. The isolated hills beyond are also flat-topped and terraced. This deposit contains no fossils; and its general appearance and mineral constituents are the only evidence of its origin, which is no doubt due to a retiring ocean that washed the base of the Sikkim Himalaya, received the contents of its rivers, and, wearing away its bluff spurs, spread a talus upwards of 1000 feet thick along its shores. It is not at first sight evident whether the terracing is due to periodic retirements of the ocean, or to the levelling effects of rivers that have cut channels through the deposit. In many places, especially along the banks of the great streams, the gravel is smaller, obscurely interstratified with sand, and the flattened pebbles over-lap rudely, in a manner characteristic of the effects of running water; but such is not the case with the main body of the deposit, which is unstratified, and much coarser.
The alluvium of the Gangetic valley is both interstratified with the gravel, and passes into it, and was no doubt deposited in deep water, whilst the coarser matter[124] was accumulating at the foot of the mountains.
[124] This, too, is non-fossiliferous, and is of unknown depth, except at Calcutta, where the sand and clay beds have been bored through, to the depth of 120 feet, below which the first pebbles were met with. Whence these pebbles were derived is a curious problem. The great Himalayan rivers convey pebbles but a very few miles from the mountains on to the plains of India; and there is no rock in situ above the surface, within many miles of Calcutta, in any direction.
This view is self-evident, and has occurred, I believe, to almost every observer, at whatever part of the base of the Himalaya he may have studied this deposit. Its position, above the sandstones of the Sewalik range in the north-west Himalaya, and those of Sikkim, which appear to be modern fossiliferous rocks, indicates its being geologically of recent formation; but it still remains a subject of the utmost importance to discover the extent and nature of the ocean to whose agency it is referred. I have elsewhere remarked that the alluvium of the Gangetic valley may to a great degree be the measure of the denudation which the Himalaya has suffered along its Indian watershed. It was, no doubt, during the gradual rise of that chain from the ocean, that the gravel and alluvium were deposited; and in the terraces and alternation of these, there is evidence that there have been many subsidences and elevations of the coast-line, during which the gravel has suffered greatly from denudation.
I have never looked at the Sikkim Himalaya from the plains without comparing its bold spurs enclosing sinuous river gorges, to the weather-beaten front of a mountainous coast; and in following any of its great rivers, the scenery of its deep valleys no less strikingly resembles that of such narrow arms of the sea (or fiords) as characterize every mountainous coast, of whatever geological formation: such as the west coast of Scotland and Norway, of South Chili and Fuegia, of New Zealand and Tasmania. There are too in these Himalayan valleys, at all elevations below 600 feet, terraced pebble-beds, rising in some cases eighty feet above the rivers, which I believe could only have been deposited by them when they debouched into deep water; and both these, and the beds of the rivers, are strewed, down to 1000 feet, with masses of rock. Such accumulations and transported blocks are seen on the raised beaches of our narrow Scottish salt water lochs, exposed by the rising of the land, and they are yet forming of immense thickness on many coasts by the joint action of tides and streams.
I have described meeting with ancient moraines in every Himalayan valley I ascended, at or about 7000 or 8000 feet elevation, proving, that at one period, the glaciers descended fully so much below the position they now occupy: this can only be explained by a change of climate,[125] or by a depression of the mountain mass equal to 8000 feet, since the formation of these moraines.
[125] Such a change of temperature, without any depression or elevation of the mountains, has been thought by Capt. R. Strachey (“Journal of Geological Society”), an able Himalayan observer, to be the necessary consequence of an ocean at the foot of these mountains; for the amount of perpetual snow, and consequent descent of the glaciers, increasing indirectly in proportion to the humidity of the climate, and the snow-fall, he conjectured that the proximity of the ocean would prodigiously increase such a deposition of snow.—To me, this argument appears inconclusive; for the first effect of such a vast body of water would be to raise the temperature of winter; and as it is the rain, rather than the sun of summer, which removes the Sikkim snow, so would an increase of this rain elevate, rather than depress, the level of perpetual snow.
The country about Titalya looks desert, from that want of trees and cultivation, so characteristic of the upper level throughout this part of the plains, which is covered with short, poor pasture-grass. The bungalow stands close to the Mahanuddy, on a low hill, cut into an escarpment twenty feet high, which exposes a section of river-laid sand and gravel, alternating with thick beds of rounded pebbles.
Shortly after Dr. Campbell’s arrival, the meadows about the bungalow presented a singular appearance, being dotted over with elephants, brought for purchase by Government. It was curious to watch the arrival of these enormous animals, which were visible nearly two miles across the flat plains; nor less interesting was it to observe the wonderful docility of these giants of the animal kingdom, often only guided by naked boys, perched on their necks, scolding, swearing, and enforcing their orders with the iron goad. There appeared as many tricks in elephant-dealers as in horse-jockeys, and of many animals brought, but few were purchased. Government limits the price to about 75 pounds, and the height to the shoulder must not be under seven feet, which, incredible as it appears, may be estimated within a fraction as being three times the circumference of the forefoot. The pedigree is closely inquired into, the hoofs are examined for cracks, the teeth for age, and many other points attended to.
The Sikkim frontier, from the Mahanuddy westward to the Mechi, is marked out by a row of tall posts. The country is undulating; and though fully 400 miles from the ocean, and not sixty from the top of the loftiest mountain on the globe, its average level is not 300 feet above that of the sea. The upper levels are gravelly, and loosely covered with scattered thorny jujube bushes, occasionally tenanted by the Florican, which scours these downs like a bustard. Sometimes a solitary fig, or a thorny acacia, breaks the horizon, and there are a few gnarled trees of the scarlet Butea frondosa.
On our route I had a good opportunity of examining the line of junction between the alluvial plains that stretch south to the Ganges, and the gravel deposit flanking the hills. The rivers always cut broad channels with scarped terraced sides, and their low banks are very fertile, from the mud annually spread by the ever-shifting streams that meander within their limits; there are, however, few shrubs and no trees. The houses, which are very few and scattered, are built on the gravelly soil above, the lower level being very malarious.
Thirty miles south of the mountains, numerous isolated flat-topped hills, formed of stratified gravel and sand with large water-worn pebbles, rise from 80 to 200 feet above the mean level, which is about 250 feet above the sea; these, too, have always scarped sides, and the channels of small streams completely encircle them.
At this season few insects but grasshoppers are to be seen, even mosquitos being rare. Birds, however, abound, and we noticed the common sparrow, hoopoe, water-wagtail, skylark, osprey, and several egrets.
We arrived on the third day at the Mechi river, to the west of which the Nepal Terai (or Morung) begins, whose belt of Sal forest loomed on the horizon, so raised by refraction as to be visible as a dark line, from the distance of many miles. It is, however, very poor, all the large trees having been removed. We rode for several miles into it, and found the soil dry and hard, but supporting a prodigious undergrowth of gigantic harsh grasses that reached to our heads, though we were mounted on elephants. Besides Sal there was abundance of Butea, Diospyros, Terminalia, and Symplocos, with the dwarf Phœnix palm, and occasionally Cycas. Tigers, wild elephants, and the rhinoceros, are said to be found here; but we saw none.
The old and new Mechi rivers are several miles apart, but flow in the same depression, a low swamp many miles broad, which is grazed at this season, and cultivated during the rains. The grass is very rich, partly owing to the moisture of the climate, and partly to the retiring waters of the rivers; both circumstances being the effects of proximity to the Himalaya. Hence cattle (buffalos and the common humped cow of India) are driven from the banks of the Ganges 300 miles to these feeding grounds, for the use of which a trifling tax is levied on each animal. The cattle are very carelessly herded, and many are carried off by tigers.
Having returned to Titalya, Mr. Hodgson and I set off in an eastern direction for the Teesta river, whose embouchure from the mountains to the plains I was anxious to visit. Though the weather is hot, and oppressively so in the middle of the day, there are few climates more delicious than that of these grassy savannahs from December to March. We always started soon after daybreak on ponies, and enjoyed a twelve to sixteen miles’ gallop in the cool of the morning before breakfast, which we found prepared on our arrival at a tent sent on ahead the night before. The road led across an open country, or followed paths through interminable rice-fields, now dry and dusty. On poor soil a white-flowered Leucas monopolized the space, like our charlock and poppy: it was apparently a pest to the agriculturist, covering the surface in some places like a sprinkling of snow. Sometimes the river-beds exposed fourteen feet of pure stratified sand, with only an inch of vegetable soil above. At this season the mornings are very hazy, with the thermometer at sunrise 60°; one laid on grass during the night falling 7° below that temperature: dew forms, but never copiously: by 10 a.m. the temperature has risen to 75°, and the faint easterly morning breezes die away; the haze thickens, and covers the sky with a white veil, the thermometer rising to 82° at noon, and the west wind succeeding in parching tornados and furious gusts, increasing with the temperature, which attains its maximum in the afternoon, and falling again with its decline at sunset. The evenings are calm; but the earth is so heated, that the thermometer stands at 10 p.m. at 66°, and the minimum at night is not below 55°: great drought accompanies the heat at this season, but not to such a degree as in North-west India, or other parts of this meridian further removed from the hills. In the month of March, and during the prevalence of west winds, the mean temperature was 79°, and the dew-point 22° lower, indicating great drought. The temperature at Calcutta was 7° warmer, and the atmosphere very much damper.
On the second day we arrived at Jeelpigoree, a large straggling village near the banks of the Teesta, a good way south of the forest: here we were detained for several days, waiting for elephants with which to proceed northwards. The natives are Cooches, a Mogul (Mongolian) race, who inhabit the open country of this district, replacing the Mechis of the Terai forest. They are a fine athletic people, not very dark, and formed the once-powerful house of Cooch Behar. Latterly the upper classes have adopted the religion of the Brahmins, and have had caste conferred upon them; while the lower orders have turned Mahomedans: these, chiefly agriculturists, are a timid, oppressed class, who everywhere fled before us, and were with difficulty prevailed upon even to direct us along our road. A rude police is established by the British Government all over the country, and to it the traveller applies for guides and assistance; but the Conches were so shy and difficult to deal with, that we were generally left to our own resources.
Grass is the prevailing feature of the country, as there are few shrubs, and still fewer trees. Goats and the common Indian cow are plentiful; but it is not swampy enough for the buffalo; and sheep are scarce, on account of the heat of the climate. This uniformity of feature over so immense an area is, however, due to the agency of man, and is of recent introduction; as all concur in affirming, that within the last hundred years the face of the country was covered with the same long jungle-grasses which abound in the Terai forest; and the troops cantoned at Titalya (a central position in these plains) from 1816 to 1828, confirm this statement as far as their immediate neighbourhood is concerned.
These gigantic Gramineæ seem to be destroyed by fire with remarkable facility at one season of the year; and it is well that this is the case; for, whether as a retainer of miasma, a shelter for wild beasts, both carnivorous and herbivorous, alike dangerous to man, or from their liability to ignite, and spread destruction far and wide, the grass-jungles are most serious obstacles to civilization. Next to the rapidity with which it can be cleared, the adaptation of a great part of the soil to irrigation during the rains, has greatly aided the bringing of it under cultivation.
By far the greater proportion of this universal short turf grass is formed of Andropogon acicularis, Cynodon Dactylon,[126] and in sandy places, Imperata cylindrica; where the soil is wetter, Ameletia Indica is abundant, giving a heather-like colour to the turf, with its pale purple flowers: wherever there is standing water, its surface is reddened by the Azolla, and Salvinia is also common.
[126] Called “Dhob.” This is the best pasture grass in the plains of India, and the only one to be found over many thousands of square miles.
At Jeelpigoree we were waited upon by the Dewan, who governs the district for the Rajah, a boy about ten years old, whose estates are locked up during the trial of an interminable suit for the succession, that has been instituted against him by a natural son of the late Rajah: we found the Dewan to be a man of intelligence, who promised us elephants as soon as the great Hooli festival, now commenced, should be over.
The large village, at the time of our visit, was gay with holiday dresses. It is surrounded by trees, chiefly of banyan, jack, mango, peepul, and tamarind: interminable rice-fields extend on all sides, and except bananas, slender betel-nut palms, and sometimes pawn, or betel-pepper, there is little other extensive cultivation. The rose-apple, orange, and pine-apple are rare, as are cocoa-nuts: there are few date or fan-palms, and only occasionally poor crops of castor-oil and sugar-cane. In the gardens I noticed jasmine, Justicia Adhatoda, Hibiscus, and others of the very commonest Indian ornamental plants; while for food were cultivated Chenopodium, yams, sweet potatos, and more rarely peas, beans, and gourds. Bamboos were planted round the little properties and smaller clusters of houses, in oblong squares, the ridge on which the plants grew being usually bounded by a shallow ditch. The species selected was not the most graceful of its family; the stems, or culms, being densely crowded, erect, as thick at the base as the arm, copiously branching, and very feathery throughout their whole length of sixty feet.
A gay-flowered 0sbeckia was common along the roadsides, and, with a Clerodendron,[127] whose strong, sweet odour was borne far through the air, formed a low undershrub beneath every tree, generally intermixed with three ferns (a Polypodium, Pteris, and Goniopteris).
[127] Clerodendron leaves, bruised, are used to kill vermin, fly-blows, etc., in cattle; and the twigs form toothpicks. The flowers are presented to Mahadeo, as a god of peace; milk, honey, flowers, fruit, amrit (ambrosia), etc., being offered to the pacific gods, as Vishnu, Krishna, etc.; while Mudar (Asclepias), Bhang (Cannabis sativa), Datura, flesh, blood, and spirituous liquors, are offered to Siva, Doorga, Kali, and other demoniacal deities.
The cottages are remarkable, and have a very neat appearance, presenting nothing but a low white-washed platform of clay, and an enormous high, narrow, black, neatly thatched roof, so arched along the ridge, that its eaves nearly touch the ground at each gable; and looking at a distance like a gigantic round-backed elephant. The walls are of neatly-platted bamboo: each window (of which there are two) is crossed by slips of bamboo, and wants only glass to make it look European; they have besides shutters of wattle, that open upwards, projecting during the day like the port-hatches of a ship, and let down at night. Within, the rooms are airy and clean: one end contains the machans (bedsteads), the others some raised clay benches, the fire, frequently an enormous Hookah, round wattled stools, and various implements. The inhabitants appeared more than ordinarily well-dressed; the men in loose flowing robes of fine cotton or muslin, the women in the usual garb of a simple thick cotton cloth, drawn tight immediately above the breast, and thence falling perpendicularly to the knee; the colour of this is a bright blue in stripes, bordered above and below with red.
I anticipated some novelty from a visit to a Durbar (court) so distant from European influence as that of the Rajah of Jeelpigoree. All Eastern courts, subject to the Company, are, however, now shorn of much of their glory; and the condition of the upper classes is greatly changed. Under the Mogul rule, the country was farmed out to Zemindars, some of whom assumed the title of Rajah: they collected the revenue for the Sovereign, retaining by law ten per cent. on all that was realized: there was no intermediate class, the peasant paying directly to the Zemindar, and he into the royal treasury. Latterly the Zemindars have become farmers under the Company’s rule; and in the adjudication of their claims, Lord Cornwallis (then Governor-General) made great sacrifices in their favour, levying only a small tribute in proportion to their often great revenues, in the hope that they would be induced to devote their energies, and some of their means, to the improvement of the condition of the peasantry. This expectation was not realized: the younger Zemindars especially, subject to no restraint (except from aggressions on their neighbours), fell into slothful habits, and the collecting of the revenue became a trading speculation, entrusted to “middle men.” The Zemindar selects a number, who again are at liberty to collect through the medium of several sub-renting classes. Hence the peasant suffers, and except a generally futile appeal to the Rajah, he has no redress. The law secures him tenure as long as he can pay his rent, and to do this he has recourse to the usurer; borrowing in spring (at 50, and oftener 100 per cent.) the seed, plough, and bullocks: he reaps in autumn, and what is then not required for his own use, is sold to pay off part of his original debt, the rest standing over till the next season; and thus it continues to accumulate, till, overwhelmed with difficulties, he is ejected, or flees to a neighbouring district. The Zemindar enjoys the same right of tenure as the peasant: the amount of impost laid on his property was fixed for perpetuity; whatever his revenue be, he must pay so much to the Company, or he forfeits his estates, and they are put up for auction.
One evening we visited the young Rajah at his residence, which has rather a good appearance at a distance, its white walls gleaming through a dark tope of mango, betel, and cocoa-nut. A short rude avenue leads to the entrance gate, under the trees of which a large bazaar was being held; stocked with cloths, simple utensils, ornaments, sweetmeats, five species of fish from the Teesta, and the betel-nut.
We entered through a guard-house, where were some of the Rajah’s Sepoys in the European costume, and a few of the Company’s troops, lent to the Rajah as a security against some of the turbulent pretenders to his title. Within was a large court-yard, flanked by a range of buildings, some of good stone-work, some of wattle, in all stages of disrepair. A great crowd of people occupied one end of the court, and at the other we were received by the Dewan, and seated on chairs under a canopy supported by slender silvered columns. Some slovenly Natch-girls were dancing before us, kicking up clouds of dust, and singing or rather bawling through their noses, the usual indelicate hymns in honour of the Hooli festival; there were also fiddlers, cutting uncouth capers in rhythm with the dancers. Anything more deplorable than the music, dancing, and accompaniments, cannot well be imagined; yet the people seemed vastly pleased, and extolled the performers.
The arrival of the Rajah and his brothers was announced by a crash of tom-toms and trumpets, while over their heads were carried great gilt canopies. With them came a troop of relations, of all ages; and amongst them a poor little black girl, dressed in honour of us in an old-fashioned English chintz frock and muslin cap, in which she cut the drollest figure imaginable; she was carried about for our admiration, like a huge Dutch doll, crying lustily all the time.
The festivities of the evening commenced by handing round trays full of pith-balls, the size of a nutmeg, filled with a mixture of flour, sand, and red lac-powder; with these each pelted his neighbour, the thin covering bursting as it struck any object, and powdering it copiously with red dust. A more childish and disagreeable sport cannot well be conceived; and when the balls were expended, the dust itself was resorted to, not only fresh, but that which had already been used was gathered up, with whatever dirt it might have become mixed. One rude fellow, with his hand full, sought to entrap his victims into talking, when he would stuff the nasty mixture into their mouths.
At the end attar of roses was brought, into which little pieces of cotton, fixed on slips of bamboo, were dipped, and given to each person. The heat, dust, stench of the unwashed multitude, noise, and increasing familiarity of the lower orders, warned us to retire, and we effected our retreat with precipitancy.
The Rajah and his brother were very fine boys, lively, frank, unaffected, and well disposed: they have evidently a good guide in the old Dewan; but it is melancholy to think how surely, should they grow up in possession of their present rank, they will lapse into slothful habits, and take their place amongst the imbeciles who now represent the once powerful Rajahs of Bengal.
We rode back to our tents by a bright moonlight, very dusty and tired, and heartily glad to breathe the cool fresh air, after the stifling ordeal we had undergone.
On the following evening the elephants were again in waiting to conduct us to the Rajah. He and his relations were assembled outside the gates, mounted upon elephants, amid a vast concourse of people. The children and Dewan were seated in a sort of cradle; the rest were some in howdahs, and some astride on elephants’ backs, six or eight together. All the idols were paraded before them, and powdered with red dust; the people howling, shouting, and sometimes quarrelling. Our elephants took their places amongst those of the Rajah; and when the mob had sufficiently pelted one another with balls and dirty red powder, a torchlight procession was formed, the idols leading the way, to a very large tank, bounded by a high rampart, within which was a broad esplanade round the water.
The effect of the whole was very striking, the glittering cars and barbaric gaud of the idols showing best by torchlight; while the white robes and turbans of the undulating sea of people, and the great black elephants picking their way with matchless care and consideration, contrasted strongly with the quiet moonbeams sleeping on the still broad waters of the tank.
Thence the procession moved to a field, where the idols were placed on the ground, and all dismounted: the Dewan then took the children by the hand, and each worshipped his tutelary deity in a short prayer dictated by the attendant Brahmin, and threw a handful of red dust in its face. After another ordeal of powder, singing, dancing, and suffocation, our share in the Hooli ended; and having been promised elephants for the following morning, we bade a cordial farewell to our engaging little hosts and their staid old governor.
On the 10th of March we were awakened at an early hour by a heavy thunder-storm from the south-west. The sunrise was very fine, through an arch 10° high of bright blue sky, above which the whole firmament was mottled with cirrus. It continued cloudy, with light winds, throughout the day, but clear on the horizon. From this tinge such storms became frequent, ushering in the equinox; and the less hazy sky and rising hygrometer predicted an accession of moisture in the atmosphere.
We left for Rangamally, a village eight miles distant in a northerly direction, our course lying along the west bank of the Teesta.
The river is here navigated by canoes, thirty to forty feet long, some being rudely cut out of a solid log of Sal, while others are built, the planks, of which there are but few, being sewed together, or clamped with iron, and the seams caulked with the fibres of the root of Dhak (Butea frondosa), and afterwards smeared with the gluten of Diospyros embryopteris. The bed of the river is here threequarters of a mile across, of which the stream does not occupy one-third; its banks are sand-cliffs, fourteen feet in height. A few small fish and water-snakes swarm in the pools.
The whole country improved in fertility as we advanced towards the mountains: the grass became greener, and more trees, shrubs, herbs, and birds appeared. In front, the dark boundary-line of the Sal forest loomed on the horizon, and to the east rose the low hills of Bhotan, both backed by the outer ranges of the Himalaya.
Flocks of cranes were abundant over-head, flying in wedges, or breaking up into “open order,” preparing for their migration northwards, which takes place in April, their return occurring in October; a small quail was also common on the ground. Tamarisk (“Jhow”) grew in the sandy bed of the river; its flexible young branches are used in various parts of India for wattling and basket-making.
In the evening we walked to the skirts of the Sal forest. The great trunks of the trees were often scored by tigers’ claws, this animal indulging in the cat-like propensity of rising and stretching itself against such objects. Two species of Dillenia were common in the forest, with long grass, Symplocos, Emblica, and Cassia Fistula, now covered with long pods. Several parasitical air-plants grew on the dry trees, as Oberonia, Vanda, and Ærides.
At Rangamally, the height of the sandy banks of the Teesta varies from fifteen to twenty feet. The bed is a mile across, and all sand;[128] the current much divided, and opaque green, from the glacial origin of most of its head-streams. The west bank was covered with a small Sal forest, mixed with Acacia Catechu, and brushwood, growing in a poor vegetable loam, over very dry sand.
[128] Now covered with Anthistiria grass, fifteen feet high, a little Sissoo, and Bombax.
The opposite (or Bhotan) bank is much lower, and always flooded during the rains, which is not the case on the western side, where the water rises to ten feet below the top of the bank, or from seven to ten feet above its height in the dry season, and it then fills its whole bed. This information we had from a police Jemadar, who has resided many years on this unhealthy spot, and annually suffers from fever. The Sal forest has been encroached upon from the south, for many miles, within the memory of man, by clearing in patches, and by indiscriminate felling.
About ten miles north of Rangamally, we came to an extensive flat, occupying a recess in the high west bank, the site of the old capital (Bai-kant-pore) of the Jeelpigoree Rajah. Hemmed in as it is on three sides by a dense forest, and on all by many miles of malarious Terai, it appears sufficiently secure from ordinary enemies, during a great part of the year. The soil is sandy, overlying gravel, and covered with a thick stratum of fine mud or silt, which is only deposited on these low flats; on it grew many naturalized plants, as hemp, tobacco, jack, mango, plantain, and orange.
About eight miles on, we left the river-bed, and struck westerly through a dense forest, to a swampy clearance occupied by the village of Rummai, which appeared thoroughly malarious; and we pitched the tent on a narrow, low ridge, above the level of the plain.
It was now cool and pleasant, partly due, no doubt, to a difference in the vegetation, and the proximity of swamp and forest, and partly also to a change in the weather, which was cloudy and threatening; much rain, too, had fallen here on the preceding day.
Brahmins and priests of all kinds are few in this miserable country: near the villages, and under the large trees, are, every here and there, a few immature thatched cottages, four to six feet high, in which the tutelary deities of the place are kept; they are idols of the very rudest description, of Vishnu as an ascetic (Bai-kant Nath), a wooden doll, gilt and painted, standing, with the hands raised as if in exhortation, and one leg crossed over the other. Again, Kartik, the god of war, is represented sitting astride on a peacock, with the right hand elevated and holding a small flat cup.
Some fine muscular Cooches were here brought for Mr. Hodgson’s examination, but we found them unable or unwilling to converse, in the Cooch tongue, which appears to be fast giving place to Bengalee.
We walked to a stream, which flows at the base of the retiring sand-cliffs, and nourishes a dense and richly-varied jungle, producing many plants, as beautiful Acanthaceæ, Indian horse-chesnut, loaded with white racemes of flowers, gay Convolvuli, laurels, terrestrial and parasitic Orchideæ, Dillenia, casting its enormous flowers as big as two fists, pepper, figs, and, in strange association with these, a hawthorn, and the yellow-flowered Indian strawberry, which ascends 7,500 feet on the mountains, and Hodgsonia, a new Cucurbitaceous genus, clinging in profusion to the trees, and also found 5000 feet high on the mountains.
In the evening we rode into the forest (which was dry and very unproductive), and thence along the river-banks, through Acacia Catechu, belted by Sissoo, which often fringes the stream, always occupying the lowest flats. The foliage at this season is brilliantly green; and as the evening advanced, a yellow convolvulus burst into flower like magic, adorning the bushes over which it climbed.
It rained on the following morning; after which we left for the exit of the Teesta, proceeding northwards, sometimes through a dense forest of Sal timber, sometimes dipping into marshy depressions, or riding through grassy savannahs, breast-high. The coolness of the atmosphere was delicious, and the beauty of the jungle seemed to increase the further we penetrated these primæval forests.
Eight miles from Rummai we came on a small river from the mountains, with a Cooch village close by, inhabited during the dry season by timber-cutters from Jeelpigoree it is situated upon a very rich black soil, covered with Saccharum and various gigantic grasses, but no bamboo. These long grasses replace the Sal, of which we did not see one good tree.
We here mounted the elephants, and proceeded several miles through the prairie, till we again struck upon the high Sal forest-bank, continuous with that of Rummai and Rangamally, but much loftier: it formed one of many terraces which stretch along the foot of the hills, from Punkabaree to the Teesta, but of which none are said to occur for eight miles eastwards along the Bhotan Dooars: if true, this is probably due in part to the alteration of the course of the Teesta, which is gradually working to the westward, and cutting away these lofty banks.
The elephant-drivers appeared to have taken us by mistake to the exit of the Chawa, a small stream which joins the Teesta further to the eastward. The descent to the bed of this rivulet, round the first spur of rock we met with, was fully eighty feet, through a very irregular depression, probably the old bed of the stream; it runs southwards from the hills, and was covered from top to bottom with slate-pebbles. We followed the river to its junction with the Teesta, along a flat, broad gulley, bounded by densely-wooded, steep banks of clay slate on the north, and the lofty bank on the south: between these the bed was strewed with great boulders of gneiss and other rocks, luxuriantly clothed with long grass, and trees of wild plantain, Erythrina and Bauhinia, the latter gorgeously in flower.
The Sal bank formed a very fine object: it was quite perpendicular, and beautifully stratified with various coloured sands and gravel: it tailed off abruptly at the junction of the rivers, and then trended away south-west, forming the west bank of the Teesta. The latter river is at its outlet a broad and rapid, but hardly impetuous stream, now fifty yards across, gushing from between two low, forest-clad spurs: it appeared about five feet deep, and was beautifully fringed on both sides with green Sisso.
Some canoes were here waiting for us, formed of hollowed trunks of trees, thirty feet long: two were lashed together with bamboos, and the boatmen sat one at the head and one at the stern of each: we lay along the bottom of the vessels, and in a second we were darting down the river, at the rate of at least ten or fifteen miles an hour, the bright waters leaping up on all sides, and bounding in jets-d’eau between prows and sterns of the coupled vessels. Sometimes we glided along without perceptible motion, and at others jolted down bubbling rapids, the steersmen straining every nerve to keep their bark’s head to the current, as she impatiently swerved from side to side in the eddies. To our jaded and parched frames, after the hot forenoon’s ride on the elephants, the effect was delicious: the fresh breeze blew on our heated foreheads and down our open throats and chests; we dipped our hands into the clear, cool stream, and there was “music in the waters” to our ears. Fresh verdure on the banks, clear pebbles, soft sand, long English river-reaches, forest glades, and deep jungles, followed in rapid succession; and as often as we rounded a bend or shot a rapid, the scene changed from bright to brighter still; so continuing until dusk, when we were slowly paddling along the then torpid current opposite Rangamally.[129]
[129] The following temperatures of the waters of the Teesta were taken at intervals during our passage from its exit to Rangamally, a distance of fifteen linear miles, and thirty miles following the bends:—
Exit Water Air
2.30 p.m. 62°
3.00 p.m. 62·2° 74°
3.30 p.m. 63·2°
4.00 p.m. 64°
4.30 p.m. 65°
5.00 p.m. 65·4° 72·5° opposite Rummai
5.30 p.m. 66°
6.00 p.m. 66° 71·7° opposite Baikant
The absence of large stones or boulders of rock in the bed of the Teesta is very remarkable, considering the great volume and rapidity of the current, and that it shoots directly from the rocky hills to the gravelly plains. At the embouchure there are boulders as big as the head, and in the stream, four miles below the exit, the boatmen pointed out a stone as large as the body as quite a marvel.
They assured us that the average rise at the mouth of the river, in the rains, was not more than five feet: the mean breadth of the stream is from seventy to ninety yards. From the point where it leaves the mountains, to its junction with the Megna, is at this season thirteen days’ voyage, the return occupying from twenty to twenty-five days, with the boats unladen. The name “Teesta” signifies “quiet,” this river being so in comparison with other Himalayan torrents further west, the Cosi, Konki, etc., which are devastators of all that bounds their course.
We passed but two crossing-places: at one the river is divided by an island, covered with the rude chaits and flags of the Boodhists. We also saw some Cooch fishermen, who throw the net much as we do: a fine “Mahaser” (a very large carp) was the best fish they had. Of cultivation there was very little, and the only habitations were a few grass-huts of the boatmen or buffalo herdsmen, a rare Cooch village of Catechu and Sal cutters, or the shelter of timber-floaters, who seem to pass the night in nests of long dry grass.
Our servants not having returned with the elephants from Rummai, we spent the following day at Rangamally shooting and botanizing. I collected about 100 species in a couple of hours, and observed perhaps twice that number: the more common I have repeatedly alluded to, and excepting some small terrestrial Orchids, I added nothing of particular interest to my collection.[130]
[130] The following is a list of the principal genera, most of which are English:—Polygonum, Quercus, Sonchus, Gnaphalium, Cratagus, Lobelia, Lactuca, Hydrocotyle, Saponaria, Campanula, Bidens, Rubus, Oxalis, Artemisia, Fragaria, Clematis, Dioscorea, Potamogeton, Chara, Veronica, Viola, Smilax.
On the 14th of March we proceeded west to Siligoree, along the skirts of the ragged Sal forest. Birds are certainly the most conspicuous branch of the natural history of this country, and we saw many species, interesting either from their habits, beauty, or extensive distribution. We noticed no less than sixteen kinds of swimming birds, several of which are migratory and English. The Shoveller, white-eyed and common wild ducks; Merganser, Brahminee, and Indian goose (Anser Indica); common and Gargany teal; two kinds of gull; one of Shearwater (Rhynchops ablacus); three of tern, and one of cormorant. Besides these there were three egrets, the large crane, stork, green heron, and the demoiselle; the English sand-martin, kingfisher, peregrine-falcon, sparrow-hawk, kestrel, and the European vulture: the wild peacock, and jungle-fowl. There were at least 100 peculiarly Indian birds in addition, of which the more remarkable were several kinds of mina, of starling, vulture, kingfisher, magpie, quail, and lapwing.
The country gradually became quite beautiful, much undulated and diversified by bright green meadows, sloping lawns, and deeply wooded nullahs, which lead from the Sal forest and meander through this varied landscape. More beautiful sites for fine mansions could not well be, and it is difficult to suppose so lovely a country should be so malarious as it is before and after the rains, excessive heat probably diffusing widely the miasma from small stagnant surfaces. We noticed a wild hog, absolutely the first wild beast of any size I saw on the plains, except the hispid hare (Lepus hispidus) and the barking deer (Stylocerus ratna). The hare we found to be the best game of this part of India, except the teal. The pheasants of Dorjiling are poor, the deer all but uneatable, and the florican, however dressed, I considered a far from excellent bird.
A good many plants grow along the streams, the sandy beds of which are everywhere covered with the marks of tigers’ feet. The only safe way of botanizing is by pushing through the jungle on elephants; an uncomfortable method, from the quantity of ants and insects which drop from the foliage above, and from the risk of disturbing pendulous bees’ and ants’ nests.
A peculiar species of willow (Salix tetrasperma) is common here; which is a singular fact, as the genus is characteristic of cold and arctic latitudes; and no species is found below 5000 feet elevation on the Sikkim mountain, where it grows on the inner Himalaya only, some kinds ascending to 16,000 feet.
East of Siligoree the plains are unvaried by tree or shrub, and are barren wastes of short turf or sterile sand, with the dwarf-palm (Phœnix acaulis), a sure sign of a most hungry soil.
The latter part of the journey I performed on elephants during the heat of the day, and a more uncomfortable mode of conveyance surely never was adopted; the camel’s pace is more fatiguing, but that of the elephant is extremely trying after a few miles, and is so injurious to the human frame that the Mahouts (drivers) never reach an advanced age, and often succumb young to spine-diseases, brought on by the incessant motion of the vertebral column. The broiling heat of the elephant’s black back, and the odour of its oily driver, are disagreeable accompaniments, as are its habits of snorting water from its trunk over its parched skin, and the consequences of the great bulk of green food which it consumes.
From Siligoree I made a careful examination of the gravel beds that occur on the road north to the foot of the hills, and thence over the tertiary sandstone to Punkabaree. At the Rukti river, which flows south-west, the road suddenly rises, and crosses the first considerable hill, about two miles south of any rock in situ. This river cuts a cliff from 60 to 100 feet high, composed of stratified sand and water-worn gravel: further south, the spur declines into the plains, its course marked by the Sal that thrives on its gravelly soil. The road then runs north-west over a plain to an isolated hill about 200 feet high, also formed of sand and gravel. We ascended to the top of this, and found it covered with blocks of gneiss, and much angular detritus. Hence the road gradually ascends, and becomes clayey. Argillaceous rocks, and a little ochreous sandstone appeared in highly-inclined strata, dipping north, and covered with great water-worn blocks of gneiss. Above, a flat terrace, flanked to the eastward by a low wooded hill, and another rise of sandstone, lead on to the great Baisarbatti terrace.
Bombax, Erythrina, and Duabanga (Lagærstræmia grandiflora), were in full flower, and with the profusion of Bauhinia, rendered the tree-jungle gay: the two former are leafless when flowering. The Duabanga is the pride of these forests. Its trunk, from eight to fifteen feet in girth, is generally forked from the base, and the long pendulous branches which clothe the trunk for 100 feet, are thickly leafy, and terminated by racemes of immense white flowers, which, especially when in bud, smell most disagreeably of assafœtida. The magnificent Apocyneous climber, Beaumontia, was in full bloom, ascending the loftiest trees, and clothing their trunks with its splendid foliage and festoons of enormous funnel-shaped white flowers.
The report of a bed of iron-stone eight or ten miles west of Punkabaree determined our visiting the spot; and the locality being in a dense jungle, the elephants were sent on ahead.
We descended to the terraces flanking the Balasun river, and struck west along jungle-paths to a loosely-timbered flat. A sudden descent of 150 feet landed us on a second terrace. Further on, a third dip of about twenty feet (in some places obliterated) flanks the bed of the Balasun; the river itself being split into many channels at this season. The west bank, which is forty feet high, is of stratified sand and gravel, with vast slightly-worn blocks of gneiss: from the top of this we proceeded south-west for three miles to some Mechi villages, the inhabitants of which flocked to meet us, bringing milk and refreshments.
The Lohar-ghur, or “iron hill,” lies in a dense dry forest. Its plain-ward flanks are very steep, and covered with scattered weather-worn masses of ochreous and black iron-stone, many of which are several yards long: it fractures with faint metallic lustre, and is very earthy in parts: it does not affect the compass. There are no pebbles of iron-stone, nor water-worn rocks of any kind found with it.
The sandstones, close by, cropped out in thick beds (dip north 70°): they are very soft, and beds of laminated clay, and of a slaty rock, are intercalated with them; also an excessively tough conglomerate, formed of an indurated blue or grey paste, with nodules of harder clay. There are no traces of metal in the rock, and the lumps of ore are wholly superficial.
Below Punkabaree the Baisarbatti stream cuts through banks of gravel overlying the sandstone (dip north 65°). The sandstone is gritty and micaceous, intercalated with beds of indurated shale and clay; in which I found the shaft (apparently) of a bone; there were also beds of the same clay conglomerate which I had seen at Lohar-ghur, and thin seams of brown lignite; with a rhomboidal cleavage. In the bed of the stream were carbonaceous shales, with obscure impressions of fern leaves, of Trizygia, and Vertebraria: both fossils characteristic of the Burdwan coal-fields (see page 8), but too imperfect to justify any conclusion as to the relation between these formations.[131]
[131] These traces of fossils are not sufficient to identify the formation with that of the sewalik hills of North-west India; but its contents, together with its strike, dip, and position relatively to the mountains, and its mineralogical character, incline me to suppose it may be similar. Its appearance in such small quantities in Sikkim (where it rises but a few hundred feet above the level of the sea, whereas in Kumaon it reaches 4000 feet), may be attributed to the greater amount of wearing which it must have undergone; the plains from which it rises being 1000 feet lower than those of Kumaon, and the sea having consequently retired later, exposing the Sikkim sandstone to the effects of denudation for a much longer period. Hitherto no traces of this rock, or of any belonging to a similar geological epoch, have been found in the valleys of Sikkim; but when the narrowness of these is considered, it will not appear strange that such may have been removed from their surfaces: first, by the action of a tidal ocean; and afterwards, by that of tropical rains.
Ascending the stream, these shales are seen in situ, overlain by the metamorphic clay-slate of the mountains, and dipping inwards (northwards) like them. This is at the foot of the Punkabaree spur, and close to the bungalow, where a stream and land-slip expose good sections. The carbonaceous beds dip north 60° and 70°, and run east and west; much quartz rock is intercalated with them, and soft white and pink micaceous sandstones. The coal-seams are few in number, six to twelve inches thick, very confused and distorted, and full of elliptic nodules, or spheroids of quartzy slate, covered with concentric scaly layers of coal: they overlie the sandstones mentioned above. These scanty notices of superposition being collected in a country clothed with the densest tropical forest, where a geologist pursues his fatiguing investigations under disadvantages that can hardly be realized in England, will I fear long remain unconfirmed. I may mention, however, that the appearance of inversion of the strata at the foot of great mountain-masses has been observed in the Alleghany chain, and I believe in the Alps.[132]
[132] Dr. M‘Lelland informs me that in the Curruckpore hills, south of the Ganges, the clay-slates are overlain by beds of mica-slate, gneiss, and granite, which pass into one another.
A poor Mech was fishing in the stream, with a basket curiously formed of a cylinder of bamboo, cleft all round in innumerable strips, held together by the joints above and below; these strips being stretched out as a balloon in the middle, and kept apart by a hoop: a small hole is cut in the cage, and a mouse-trap entrance formed: the cage is placed in the current with the open end upwards, where the fish get in, and though little bigger than minnows, cannot find their way out.
On the 20th we had a change in the weather: a violent storm from the south-west occurred at noon, with hail of a strange form, the stones being sections of hollow spheres, half an inch across and upwards, formed of cones with truncated apices and convex bases; these cones were aggregated together with their bases outwards. The large masses were followed by a shower of the separate conical pieces, and that by heavy rain. On the mountains this storm was most severe: the stones lay at Dorjiling for seven days, congealed into masses of ice several feet long and a foot thick in sheltered places: at Purneah, fifty miles south, stones one and two inches across fell, probably as whole spheres.
Ascending to Khersiong, I found the vegetation very backward by the road-sides. The rain had cleared the atmosphere, and the view over the plains was brilliant. On the top of the Khersiong spur a tremendous gale set in with a cold west wind: the storm cleared off at night, which at 10 p.m. was beautiful, with forked and sheet lightning over the plains far below us. The equinoctial gales had now fairly set in, with violent south-east gales, heavy thunder, lightning, and rain.
Whilst at Khersiong I took advantage of the very fair section afforded by the road from Punkabaree, to examine the structure of the spur, which seems to be composed of very highly inclined contorted beds (dip north) of metamorphic rocks, gneiss, mica-slate, clay-slate, and quartz; the foliation of which beds is parallel to the dip of the strata. Over all reposes a bed of clay, capped with a layer of vegetable mould, nowhere so thick and rich as in the more humid regions of 7000 feet elevation. The rocks appeared in the following succession in descending. Along the top are found great blocks of very compact gneiss buried in clay. Half a mile lower the same rock appears, dipping north-north-east 50°. Below this, beds of saccharine quartz, with seams of mica, dip north-north-west 20°. Some of these quartz beds are folded on themselves, and look like flattened trunks of trees, being composed of concentric layers, each from two to four inches thick: we exposed twenty-seven feet of one fold running along the side of the road, which was cut parallel to the strike. Each layer of quartz was separated from its fellows, by one of mica scales; and was broken up into cubical fragments, whose surfaces are no doubt cleavage and jointing places. I had previously seen, but not understood, such flexures produced by metamorphic action on masses of quartz when in a pasty state, in the Falkland Islands, where they have been perfectly well described by Mr. Darwin;[133] in whose views of the formation of these rocks I entirely concur.
[133] Journal of Geological Society for 1846, p. 267, and “Voyage of the Beagle”.
The flexures of the gneiss are incomparably more irregular and confused than those of the quartz, and often contain flattened spheres of highly crystalline felspar, that cleave perpendicularly to the shorter axis. These spheres are disposed in layers parallel to the foliation of the gneiss: and are the result of a metamorphic action of great intensity, effecting a complete rearrangement and crystallization of the quartz and mica in parallel planes, whilst the felspar is aggregated in spheres; just as in the rearrangement of the mineral constituents of mica-schists, the alumina is crystallized in the garnets, and in the clay-slates the iron into pyrites.
The quartz below this dips north-north-west 45° to 50°, and alternates with a very hard slaty schist, dipping north-west 45°, and still lower is a blue-grey clay-slate, dipping north-north-west 30°. These rest on beds of slate, folded like the quartz mentioned above, but with cleavage-planes, forming lines radiating from the axis of each flexure, and running through all the concentric folds. Below this are the plumbago and clay slates of Punkabaree, which alternate with beds of mica-schist with garnets, and appear to repose immediately upon the carboniferous strata and sandstone; but there is much disturbance at the junction.
On re-ascending from Punkabaree, the rocks gradually appear more and more dislocated, the clay-slate less so than the quartz and mica-schist, and that again far less than the gneiss, which is so shattered and bent, that it is impossible to say what is in situ, and what not. Vast blocks lie superficially on the ridges; and the tops of all the outer mountains, as of Khersiong spur, of Tonglo, Sinchul, and Dorjiling, appear a pile of such masses. Injected veins of quartz are rare in the lower beds of schist and clay-slate, whilst the gneiss is often full of them; and on the inner and loftier ranges, these quartz veins are replaced by granite with tourmaline.
Lime is only known as a stalactitic deposit from various streams, at elevations from 1000 to 7000 feet; one such stream occurs above Punkabaree, which I have not seen; another within the Sinchul range, on the great Rungeet river, above the exit of the Rummai; a third wholly in the great central Himalayan range, flowing into the Lachen river. The total absence of any calcareous rock in Sikkim, and the appearance of the deposit in isolated streams at such distant localities, probably indicates a very remote origin of the lime-charged waters.
From Khersiong to Dorjiling, gneiss is the only rock, and is often decomposed into clay-beds, 20 feet deep, in which the narrow, often zigzag folia of quartz remain quite entire and undisturbed, whilst every trace of the foliation of the softer mineral is lost.
At Pacheem, Dorjiling weather, with fog and drizzle, commenced, and continued for two days: we, reached Dorjiling on the 24th of March, and found that the hail which had fallen on the 20th was still lying in great masses of crumbling ice in sheltered spots. The fall had done great damage to the gardens, and Dr. Campbell’s tea-plants were cut to pieces.
Chapter XVIII
Arrangements for second journey into Sikkim—Opposition of Dewan—Lassoo Kajee—Tendong—Legend of flood—Lama of Sillok-foke—Namtchi—Tchebu Lama—Top of Tendong—Gigantic oak—Plants—Teesta valley—Commencement of rains—Bhomsong—Ascent to Lathiang—View—Bad road—Orcbids—Gorh—Opposition of Lama—Arrival of Meepo—Cross Teesta—Difficulties of travelling—Lepchas swimming—Moxa for sprains—Singtam—Grandeur of view of Kinchinjunga—Wild men—Singtam Soubah—Landslips—Bees’-nests and honey-seekers—Leeches, etc.—Chakoong—Vegetation—Gravel terraces—Unpleasant effects of wormwood—Choongtam, scenery and vegetation of—Inhabitants—Tibetan salute—Lamas—Difficulty of procuring food—Contrast of vegetation of inner and outer Himalaya—Rhododendrons—Yew—Abies Brunoniana—Venomous snakes—Hornets and other insects—Choongtam temple—Pictures of Lhassa—Minerals—Scenery.
After my return from the Terai, I was occupied during the month of April in preparations for an expedition to the loftier parts of Sikkim. The arrangements were the same as for my former journey, except with regard to food, which it was necessary should be sent out to me at intervals; for we had had ample proof that the resources of the country were not equal to provisioning a party of from forty to fifty men, even had the Dewan been favourable to my travelling, which was clearly not the case.
Dr. Campbell communicated to the Rajah my intention of starting early in May for the upper Teesta valley, and, in the Governor-General’s name, requested that he would facilitate my visiting the frontier of Sikkim, north-east of Kinchinjunga. The desired permission was, after a little delay, received; which appeared to rouse the Dewan to institute a series of obstructions to my progress, which caused so many delays that my exploration of the country was not concluded till October, and I was prevented returning to Dorjiling before the following Christmas.
Since our visit to the Rajah in December, no Vakeel (agent) had been sent by the Durbar to Dorjiling, and consequently we could only communicate indirectly with his Highness, while we found it impossible to ascertain the truth of various reports promulgated by the Dewan, and meant to deter me from entering the country. In April, the Lassoo Kajee was sent as Vakeel, but, having on a previous occasion been dismissed for insolence and incapacity, and again rejected when proposed by the Dewan at Bhomsong, he was refused an audience; and he encamped at the bottom of the Great Rungeet valley, where he lost some of his party through fever. He retired into Sikkim, exasperated, pretending that he had orders to delay my starting, in consequence of the death of the heir apparent; and that he was prepared to use strong measures should I cross the frontier.
No notice was taken of these threats: the Rajah was again informed of my intended departure, unless his own orders to the contrary were received through a proper accredited agent, and I left Dorjiling on the 3rd of May, accompanied by Dr. Campbell, who insisted on seeing me fairly over the frontier at the Great Rungeet river.
Arrangements were made for supplies of rice following me by instalments; our daily consumption being 80 lbs., a man’s load. After crossing into Sikkim, I mustered my party at the Great Rungeet river. I had forty-two in all, of whom the majority were young Lepchas, or Sikkim-born people of Tibetan races: all were active and cheerful looking follows; only one was goitred, and he had been a salt-trader. I was accompanied by a guard of five Sepoys, and had a Lepcha and Tibetan interpreter. I took but one personal servant, a Portuguese half-caste (John Hoffman by name), who cooked for me: he was a native of Calcutta, and though hardy, patient, and long-suffering, and far better-tempered, was, in other respects, very inferior to Clamanze, who had been my servant the previous year, and who, having been bred to the sea, was as handy as he was clever; but who, like all other natives of the plains, grew intolerably weary of the hills, and left me.
The first part of my route lay over Tendong, a very fine mountain, which rises 8,613 feet, and is a conspicuous feature from Dorjiling, where it is known as Mount Ararat. The Lepchas have a curious legend of a man and woman having saved themselves on its summit, during a flood that once deluged Sikkim. The coincidence of this story with the English name of Ararat suggests the probability of the legend being fabulous; but I am positively assured that it is not so, but that it was current amongst the Lepchas before its English name was heard of, and that the latter was suggested from the peculiar form of its summit resembling that given in children’s books as the resting-place of the ark.
The ascent from the Great Rungeet (alt. 818 feet) is through dry woods of Sal and Pines (P. longifolia). I camped the first night at the village of Mikk (alt. 3,900 feet), and on the following day ascended to Namtc (alt. 5,600 feet).
On the route I was met by the Lama of Silokfoke Goompa. Though a resident on the Lassoo Kajee’s estates, he politely brought me a present, at the same time apologising for not waiting till I had encamped, owing to his excessive fat, which prevented his climbing. I accepted his excuses, though well aware that his real reason was that he wished to pay his respects, and show his good feeling, in private. Besides his ordinary canonicals, he carried a tall crozier-headed staff, and had a curious horn slung round his neck, full of amulets; it was short, of a transparent red colour, and beautifully carved, and was that of the small cow of Lhassa, which resembles the English species, and is not a yak (it is called “Tundro”).
Namtchi was once a place of considerable importance; and still possesses a mendong, with six rows of inscribed slabs; a temple, and a Lama attached thereto: the latter waited on me soon after I had encamped, but he brought no present, and I was not long kept in suspense as to his motives. These people are poor dissemblers; if they intend to obstruct, they do it clumsily and hesitatingly: in this instance the Lama first made up to my people, and, being coolly received, kept gradually edging up to my tent-door, where, after an awkward salute, he delivered himself with a very bad grace of his mission, which was from the Lassoo Kajee to stop my progress. I told him I knew nothing of the Lassoo Kajee or his orders, and should proceed on the following morning: he then urged the bad state of the roads, and advised me to wait two days till he should receive orders from the Rajah; upon which I dismissed him.
Soon afterwards, as I sat at my tent-door, looking along the narrow bushy ridge that winds up the mountain, I saw twenty or thirty men rapidly descending the rocky path: they were Lepchas, with blue and white striped garments, bows and quivers, and with their long knives gleaming in the sun: they seemed to be following a figure in red Lama costume, with a scarlet silk handkerchief wound round his head, its ends streaming behind him. Though expecting this apparition to prove the renowned Kajee and his myrmidons, coming to put a sudden termination to my progress, I could not help admiring the exceeding picturesqueness of the scenery and party. My fears were soon dissipated by my men joyfully shouting, “The Tchebu Lama! the Tchebu Lama!” and I soon recognised the rosy face and twinkling eyes of my friend of Bhomsong, the only man of intelligence about the Rajah’s court, and the one whose services as Vakeel were particularly wanted at Dorjiling.
He told me that the Lassoo Kajee had orders (from whom, he would not say) to stop my progress, but that I should proceed nevertheless, and that there was no objection to my doing so; and he despatched a messenger to the Rajah, announcing my progress, and requesting him to send me a guide, and to grant me every facility, asserting that he had all along fully intended doing so.
On the following morning the Lama proceeded to Dorjiling, and I continued the ascent of Tendong, sending my men round the shoulder to Temi in the Teesta valley, where I proposed to pass the night. The road rapidly ascends by a narrow winding path, covered with a loose forest of oaks, rhododendrons, and various shrubs, not found at equal elevations on the wetter Dorjiling ranges: amongst, them the beautiful laburnum-like Piptanthus Nepalensis, with golden blossoms, was conspicuous. Enormous blocks of white and red stratified quartz, and slate, some 20 and even 40 yards long, rest on the narrow ridge at 7000 feet elevation. The last ascent is up a steep rounded cone with a broad flat top, covered with dwarf bamboo, a few oaks, laurels, magnolias, and white-flowered rhododendron trees (R. argenteum), which obstructed the view. I hung the barometers near one of the many chaits on the summit, where there is also a rude temple, in which worship is performed once a year. The elevation is 8,671 feet by my observations.[134] The geological formation of Tendong in some measure accounts for its peculiar form. On the conical summit are hard quartzoze porphyries, which have apparently forced up the gneiss and slates, which dip in all directions from the top, and are full of injected veins of quartz. Below 7000 feet, mica-schist prevails, always inclined at a very high angle; and I found jasper near Namtchi, with other indications of Plutonic action.
[134] 8,663 by Col. Waugh’s trigonometrical observations.
The descent on the north side was steep, through a rank vegetation, very different from that of the south face. The oaks are very grand, and I measured one (whose trunk was decayed, and split into three, however), which I found to be 49 feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground. Near Temi (alt. 4,770 feet) I gathered the fruit of Kadsura, a climbing plant allied to Magnolia, bearing round heads of large fleshy red drupes, which are pleasantly acid and much eaten; the seeds are very aromatic.
From Temi the road descends to the Teesta, the course of which it afterwards follows. The valley was fearfully hot, and infested with mosquitos and peepsas. Many fine plants grew in it:[135] I especially noticed Aristolochia saccata, which climbs the loftiest trees, bearing its curious pitcher-shaped flowers near the ground only; its leaves are said to be good food for cattle. Houttuynia, a curious herb allied to pepper, grew on the banks, which, from the profusion of its white flowers, resembled strawberry-beds; the leaves are eaten by the Lepchas. But the most magnificent plant of these jungles is Hodgsonia, (a genus I have dedicated to my friend, Mr. Hodgson), a gigantic climber allied to the gourd, bearing immense yellowish-white pendulous blossoms, whose petals have a fringe of buff-coloured curling threads, several inches long. The fruit is of a rich brown, like a small melon in form, and contains six large nuts, whose kernels (called “Katior-pot” by the Lepchas) are eaten. The stem, when cut, discharges water profusely from whichever end is held downwards. The “Took” (Hydnocarpus) is a beautiful evergreen tree, with tufts of yellow blossoms on the trunk: its fruit is as large as an orange, and is used to poison fish, while from the seeds an oil is expressed. Tropical oaks and Terminalias are the giants of these low forests, the latter especially, having buttressed trunks, appear truly gigantic; one, of a kind called “Sung-lok,” measured 47 feet in girth, at 5 feet, and 21 at 15 feet from the ground, and was fully 200 feet high. I could only procure the leaves by firing a ball into the crown. Some of their trunks lay smouldering on the ground, emitting a curious smell from the mineral matter in their ashes, of whose constituents an account will be found in the Appendix.
[135] Especially upon the broad terraces of gravel, some of which are upwards of a mile long, and 200 feet above the stream: they are covered with boulders of rock, and are generally opposite feeders of the river.
Birds are very rare, as is all animal life but insects, and a small fresh-water crab, Thelphusa, (“Ti-hi” of the Lepchas). Shells, from the absence of lime, are extremely scarce, and I scarcely picked up a single specimen: the most common are species of Cyclostoma.
The rains commenced on the 10th of May, greatly increasing the discomforts of travelling, but moderating the heat by drenching thunder-storms, which so soaked the men’s loads, that I was obliged to halt a day in the Teesta valley to have waterproof covers made of platted bamboo-work, enclosing Phrynium leaves. I was delighted to find that my little tent was impervious to water, though its thickness was but of one layer of blanket: it was a single ridge with two poles, 7 feet high, 8 feet long, and 8 feet broad at the base, forming nearly an equilateral triangle in front.
Bhomsong was looking more beautiful than ever in its rich summer clothing of tropical foliage. I halted during an hour of heavy rain on the spot where I had spent the previous Christmas, and could not help feeling doubly lonely in a place where every rock and tree reminded me of that pleasant time. The isolation of my position, the hostility of the Dewan, and consequent uncertainty of the success of a journey that absorbed all my thoughts, the prevalence of fevers in the valleys I was traversing, and the many difficulties that beset my path, all crowded on the imagination when fevered by exertion and depressed by gloomy weather, and my spirits involuntarily sank as I counted the many miles and months intervening between me and my home.
The little flat on which I had formerly encamped was now covered with a bright green crop of young rice. The house then occupied by the Dewan was now empty and unroofed; but the suspension bridge had been repaired, and its light framework of canes, spanning the boiling flood of the Teesta, formed a graceful object in this most beautiful landscape. The temperature of the river was 58°, only 7° above that of mid-winter, owing to the now melting snows. I had rather expected to meet either with a guide, or with some further obstruction here, but as none appeared, I proceeded onwards as soon as the weather moderated.
Higher up, the scenery resembles that of Tchintam on the Tambur: the banks are so steep as to allow of no road, and the path ascends from the river, at 1000 feet, to Lathiang village, at 4,800 feet, up a wild, rocky torrent that descends from Mainom to the Teesta. The cliffs here are covered with wild plantains and screw-pines (Pandanus), 50 feet high, that clasp the rocks with cable-like roots, and bear one or two crowns of drooping leaves, 5 feet long: two palms, Rattan (Calamus) and Areca gracilis, penetrate thus far up the Teesta valley, but are scarcely found further.
From the village the view was superb, embracing the tropical gulley below, with the flat of Bhomsong deep down in the gorge, its bright rice-fields gleaming like emeralds amid the dark vegetation that surrounded it; the Teesta winding to the southward, the pine-clad rocky top of Mainom, 10,613 feet high, to the south-west, the cone of Mount Ararat far to the south, to the north black mountains tipped with snow, and to the east the magnificent snowy range of Chola, girdling the valley of the Ryott with a diadem of frosted silver. The coolies, each carrying upwards of 80 lb. load, had walked twelve hours that day, and besides descending 2000 feet, they had ascended nearly 4000 feet, and gone over innumerable ups and downs besides.
Beyond Lathiang, a steep and dangerous path runs along the east flank of Mainom, sometimes on narrow ledges of dry rock, covered with long grass, sometimes dipping into wooded gullies, full of Edgeworthia Gardneri and small trees of Andromeda and rhododendron, covered with orchids[136] of great beauty.
[136] Especially some species of Sunipia and Cirrhopetalum, whicb have not yet been introduced into England.
Descending to Gorh (4,100 feet), I was met by the Lama of that district, a tall, disagreeable-looking fellow, who informed me that the road ahead was impassable. The day being spent, I was obliged to camp at any rate; after which he visited me in full canonicals, bringing me a handsome present, but assuring me that he had no authority to let me advance. I treated him with civility, and regretted my objects being so imperative, and my orders so clear, that I was obliged to proceed on the following morning: on which he abruptly decamped, as I suspected, in order to damage the paths and bridges. He came again at daylight, and expostulated further; but finding it of no use, he volunteered to accompany me, officiously offering me the choice of two roads. I asked for the coolest, knowing full well that it was useless to try and out-wit him in such matters. At the first stream the bridge was destroyed, but seeing the planks peeping through the bushes in which they had been concealed, I desired the Lama to repair it, which he did without hesitation. So it was at every point: the path was cumbered with limbs of trees, crossing-stones were removed from the streams, and all natural difficulties were increased. I kept constantly telling the Lama that as he had volunteered to show me the road, I felt sure he intended to remove all obstacles, and accordingly I put him to all the trouble I possibly could, which he took with a very indifferent grace. When I arrived at the swinging bridge across the Teesta, I found that the canes were loosened, and that slips of bamboo, so small as nearly to escape observation, were ingeniously placed low down over the single bamboo that formed the footing, intended to trip up the unwary passenger, and overturn him into the river, which was deep, and with a violent current. Whilst the Lama was cutting these, one of my party found a charcoal writing on a tree, announcing the speedy arrival from the Rajah of my old guide, Meepo; and he shortly afterwards appeared, with instructions to proceed with me, though not to the Tibetan frontier. The lateness of the season, the violence of the rains, and the fears, on the Rajah’s part, that I might suffer from fever or accident, were all urged to induce me to return, or at least only to follow the west branch of the Teesta to Kinchinjunga. These reasons failing, I was threatened with Chinese interference on the frontier. All these objections I overruled, by refusing to recognise any instructions that were not officially communicated to the Superintendent of Dorjiling.
The Gorh Lama here took leave of me: he was a friend of the Dewan, and was rather surprised to find that the Rajah had sent me a guide, and now attempted to pass himself off as my friend, pompously charging Meepo with the care of me, and bidding me a very polite farewell. I could not help telling him civilly, but plainly, what I thought of him; and so we parted.
Meepo was very glad to join my party again: he is a thorough Lepcha in heart, a great friend of his Rajah and of Tchebu Lama, and one who both fears and hates the Dewan. He assured me of the Rajah’s good wishes and intentions, but spoke with great doubt as to the probability of a successful issue to my journey: he was himself ignorant of the road, but had brought a guide, whose appearance, however, was against him, and who turned out to be sent as a spy on us both.
Instead of crossing the Teesta here, we kept on for two days up its west bank, to a cane bridge at Lingo, where the bed of the river is still only 2000 feet above the sea, though 45 miles distant from the plains, and flowing in a valley bounded by mountains 12,000 to 16,000 feet high. The heat was oppressive, from the closeness of the atmosphere, the great power of the sun, now high at noon-day, and the reflection from the rocks. Leeches began to swarm as the damp increased, and stinging flies of various kinds. My clothes were drenched with perspiration during five hours of every day, and the crystallising salt irritated the skin. On sitting down to rest, I was overcome with languor and sleep, and, but for the copious supply of fresh water everywhere, travelling would have been intolerable. The Coolies were all but naked, and were constantly plunging into the pools of the rivers; for, though filthy in their persons, they revel in cold water in summer. They are powerful swimmers, and will stem a very strong current, striking out with each arm alternately. It is an animated sight when twenty or thirty of these swarthy children of nature are disporting their muscular figures in the water, diving after large fish, and sometimes catching them by tickling them under the stones.
Of plants I found few not common at similar elevations below Dorjiling, except another kind of Tree-fern,[137] whose pith is eaten in times of scarcity. The India-rubber fig penetrates thus far amongst the mountains, but is of small size. A Gentian, Arenaria, and some sub-alpine plants are met with, though the elevation is only 2000 feet, and the whole climate thoroughly tropical: they were annuals usually found at 7000 to 10,000 feet elevation, and were growing here on mossy rocks, cooled by the spray of the river, whose temperature was only 56·3°. My servant having severely sprained his wrist by a fall, the Lepchas wanted to apply a moxa, which they do by lighting a piece of puff-ball, or Nepal paper that burns like tinder, laying it on the skin, and blowing it till a large open sore is produced: they shook their heads at my treatment, which consisted in transferring some of the leeches from our persons to the inflamed part.
[137] Alsophila spinulosa, the “Pugjik” of the Lepchas, who eat the soft watery pith: it is abundant in East Bengal and the Peninsula of India. The other Sikkim Tree-fern, A. gigantea, is far more common from the level of the plains to 6,500 elevation, and is found as far south as Java.
After crossing the Teesta by the cane bridge of Lingo, our route lay over a steep and lofty spur, round which the river makes a great sweep. On the ascent of this ridge we passed large villages on flats cultivated with buckwheat. The saddle is 5,500 feet high, and thence a rapid descent leads to the village of Singtam, which faces the north, and is 300 feet lower, and 3000 feet above the river, which is here no longer called the Teesta, but is known as the Lachen-Lachoong, from its double origin in the rivers of these names, which unite at Choongtam, twenty miles higher up. Of these, the source of the Lachen is in the Cholamoo lakes in Tibet; while the Lachoong rises on the south flank of Donkia mountain, both many marches north of my present position. At Singtam the Lacben-Lachoong runs westward, till joined by the Rihi from the north, and the Rinoong from the west, after receiving which it assumes the name of Teesta: of these affluents, the Rinoong is the largest, and drains the south-east face of Kinchinjunga and Pundim, and the north of Nursing: all which mountains are seen to the north-north-west of Singtam. The Rinoong valley is cultivated for several miles up, and has amongst others the village and Lamasery of Bah. Beyond this the view of black, rugged precipices with snowy mountains towering above them, is one of the finest in Sikkim. There is a pass in that direction, from Bah over the Tckonglah to the Thlonok valley, and thence to the province of Jigatzi in Tibet, but it is almost impracticable.
A race of wild men, called “Harrum-mo,” are said to inhabit the head of the valley, living in the woods of a district called Mund-po, beyond Bah; tbey shun habitations, speak an unintelligible tongue, have more hair on the face than Lepchas, and do not plait that of their heads, but wear it in a knot; they use the bow and arrow, and eat snakes and vermin, which the Lepchas will not touch. Such is the account I have heard, and which is certainly believed in Sikkim: similar stories are very current in half civilized countries; and if this has any truth, it possibly refers to the Chepangs,[138] a very remarkable race, of doubtful affinity and origin, inhabiting the Nepal forests.
[138] Hodgson, in “Bengal Asiatic Society’s Journal” for 1848.
At Singtam I was waited on by the Soubah of the district, a tall portly Bhoteea, who was destined to prove a most active enemy to my pursuits. He governs the country between Gorh and the Tibet frontier, for the Maha-Raanee (wife of the Rajah), whose dowry it is; and she being the Dewan’s relative, I had little assistance to expect from her agent. His conduct was very polite, and he brought me a handsome offering for myself; but after delaying me a day on the pretext of collecting food for my people, of which I was in want, I was obliged to move on with no addition to my store, and trust to obtaining some at the next village, or from Dorjiling. Owing, however, to the increasing distance, and the destruction of the roads by the rains, my supplies from that place were becoming irregular: I therefore thought it prudent to reduce my party, by sending back my guard of Sepoys, who could be of no further use.
From this point the upper portion of the course of the Teesta (Lachen-Lachoong) is materially different from what it is lower down; becoming a boisterous torrent, as suddenly as the Tambur does above Mywa Guola. Its bed is narrower, large masses of rock impede its course, nor is there any place where it is practicable for rafts at any season; the only means of passing it being by cane bridges that are thrown across, high above the stream.
The slope on either side of the valley is very steep; that on the north, in particular, appearing too precipitous for any road, and being only frequented by honey seekers, who scale the rocks by cane ladders, and thus reach the pendulous bees’-nests, which are so large as in some instances to be conspicuous features at the distance of a mile. This pursuit appeared extremely perilous, the long thread-like canes in many places affording the only footing, over many yards of cliff: the procuring of this honey, however, is the only means by which many of the idle poor raise the rent which they must pay to the Rajah.
The most prominent effect of the steepness of the valleys is the prevalence of land-slips, which sometimes descend for 3000 feet, carrying devastation along their course: they are caused either by the melting of the snow-beds on the mountains, or by the action of the rains on the stratified rocks, and are much increased in effect and violence by the heavy timber-trees which, swaying forwards, loosen the earth at their roots, and give impetus to the mass. This phenomenon is as frequent and destructive as in Switzerland, where, however, more lives are lost; from the country being more populous, and from the people recklessly building in places particularly exposed to such accidents. A most destructive one had, however, occurred here the previous year, by which a village was destroyed, together with twelve of its inhabitants, and all the cattle. The fragments of rock precipitated are sometimes of enormous size, but being a soft mica-schist, are soon removed by weathering. It is in the rainy season that landslips are most frequent, and shortly after rain they are pretty sure to be heard far or near. I crossed the débris of the great one alluded to, on the first march beyond Singtam: the whole face of the mountain appeared more or less torn up for fully a mile, presenting a confused mass of white micaceous clay, full of angular masses of rock. The path was very difficult and dangerous, being carried along the steep slope, at an angle, in some places, of 35°; and it was constantly shifting, from the continued downward sliding, and from the action of streams, some of which are large, and cut deep channels. In one I had the misfortune to lose my only sheep, which was carried away by the torrent. These streams were crossed by means of sticks and ricketty bamboos, and the steep sides (sometimes twenty or thirty feet high), were ascended by notched poles.
The weather continued very hot for the elevation (4000 to 5000 feet), the rain brought no coolness, and for the greater part of the three marches between Singtam and Chakoong, we were either wading through deep mud, or climbing over rocks. Leeches swarmed in incredible profusion in the streams and damp grass, and among the bushes: they got into my hair, hung on my eyelids, and crawled up my legs and down my back. I repeatedly took upwards of a hundred from my legs, where the small ones used to collect in clusters on the instep: the sores which they produced were not healed for five months afterwards, and I retain the scars to the present day. Snuff and tobacco leaves are the best antidote, but when marching in the rain, it is impossible to apply this simple remedy to any advantage. The best plan I found to be rolling the leaves over the feet, inside the stockings, and powdering the legs with snuff.
Another pest is a small midge, or sand-fly, which causes intolerable itching, and subsequent irritation, and is in this respect the most insufferable torment in Sikkim; the minutest rent in one’s clothes is detected by the acute senses of this insatiable bloodsucker, which is itself so small as to be barely visible without a microscope. We daily arrived at our camping-ground, streaming with blood, and mottled with the bites of peepsas, gnats, midges, and mosquitos, besides being infested with ticks.
As the rains advanced, insects seemed to be called into existence in countless swarms; large and small moths, cockchafers, glow-worms, and cockroaches, made my tent a Noah’s ark by night, when the candle was burning; together with winged ants, May-flies, flying earwigs, and many beetles, while a very large species of Tipula (daddy-long-legs) swept its long legs across my face as I wrote my journal, or plotted off my map. After retiring to rest and putting out the light, they gradually departed, except a few which could not find the way out, and remained to disturb my slumbers.
Chakoong is a remarkable spot in the bottom of the valley, at an angle of the Lachen-Lachoong, which here receives an affluent from Gnarem, a mountain 17,557 feet high, on the Chola range to the east.[139] There is no village, but some grass huts used by travellers, which are built close to the river on a very broad flat, fringed with alder, hornbeam, and birch: the elevation is 4,400 feet, and many European genera not found about Dorjiling, and belonging to the temperate Himalaya, grow intermixed with tropical plants that are found no further north. The birch, willow, alder, and walnut grow side by side with wild plantain, Erythrina, Wallichia palm, and gigantic bamboos: the Cedrela Toona, figs, Melastoma, Scitamineæ, balsams, Pothos, peppers, and gigantic climbing vines, grow mixed with brambles, speedwell, Paris, forget-me-not, and nettles that sting like poisoned arrows. The wild English strawberry is common, but bears a tasteless fruit: its inferiority is however counterbalanced by the abundance of a grateful yellow raspberry. Parasitical Orchids (Dendrobium nobile, and densiflorum, etc.), cover the trunks of oaks, while Thalictrum and Geranium grow under their shade. Monotropa and Balanophora, both parasites on the roots of trees (the one a native of north Europe and the other of a tropical climate), push their leafless stems and heads of flowers through the soil together: and lastly, tree-ferns grow associated with the Pteris aquilina (brake) and Lycopodium clavatum of our British moors; and amongst mosses, the superb Himalayan Lyellia crispa,[140] with the English Funaria hygrometrica.
[139] This is called Black Rock in Col. Waugh’s map. I doubt Gnarem being a generally known name: the people hardly recognise the mountain as sufficiently conspicuous to bear a name.
[140] This is one of the most remarkable mosses in the Himalaya mountains, and derives additional interest from having been named after the late Charles Lyell, Esq., of Kinnordy, the father of the most eminent geologist of the present day.
The dense jungles of Chakoong completely cover the beautiful flat terraces of stratified sand and gravel, which rise in three shelves to 150 feet above the river, and whose edges appear as sharply cut as if the latter had but lately retired from them. They are continuous with a line of quartzy cliffs, covered with scarlet rhododendrons, and in the holes of which a conglomerate of pebbles is found, 150 feet above the river. Everywhere immense boulders are scattered about, some of which are sixty yards long: their surfaces are water-worn into hollows, proving the river to have cut through nearly 300 feet of deposit, which once floored its valley. Lower down the valley, and fully 2000 feet above the river, I had passed numerous angular blocks resting on gentle slopes where no landslips could possibly have deposited them; and which I therefore refer to ancient glacial action: one of these, near the village of Niong, was nearly square, eighty feet long, and ten high.
It is a remarkable fact, that this hot, damp gorge is never malarious; this is attributable to the coolness of the river, and to the water on the flats not stagnating; for at Choongtam, a march further north, and 1,500 feet higher, fevers and ague prevail in summer on similar flats, but which have been cleared of jungle, and are therefore exposed to the sun.
I had had constant headache for several mornings on waking, which I did not fail to attribute to coming fever, or to the unhealthiness of the climate; till I accidentally found it to arise from the wormwood, upon a thick couch of the cut branches of which I was accustomed to sleep, and which in dry weather produced no such effects.[141]
[141] This wormwood (Artemisia Indaca) is one of the most common Sikkim plants at 2000 to 6000 feet elevation, and grows twelve feet high: it is a favourite food of goats.
From Chakoong to Choongtam the route lay northwards, following the course of the river, or crossing steep spurs of vertical strata of mica-schist, that dip into the valley, and leave no space between their perpendicular sides and the furious torrent. Immense landslips seamed the steep mountain flanks; and we crossed with precipitation one that extended fully 4000 feet (and perhaps much more) up a mountain 12,000 feet high, on the east bank: it moves every year, and the mud and rocks shot down by it were strewn with the green leaves and twigs of shrubs, some of the flowers on which were yet fresh and bright, while others were crushed: these were mixed with gigantic trunks of pines, with ragged bark and scored timbers. The talus which had lately been poured into the valley formed a gently sloping bank, twenty feet high, over which the Lachen- Lachoong rolled, from a pool above, caused by the damming up of its waters. On either side of the pool were cultivated terraces of stratified sand and pebbles, fifty feet high, whose alder-fringed banks, joined by an elegant cane bridge, were reflected in the placid water; forming a little spot of singular quiet and beauty, that contrasted with the savage grandeur of the surrounding mountains, and the headstrong course of the foaming torrent below, amid whose deafening roar it was impossible to speak and be heard.
The mountain of Choongtam is about 10,000 feet high; it divides the Lachen from the Lachoong river, and terminates a lofty range that runs for twenty-two miles south from the lofty mountain of Kinchinjhow. Its south exposed face is bare of trees, except clumps of pines towards the top, and is very steep, grassy, and rocky, without water. It is hence quite unlike the forest-clad mountains further south, and indicates a drier and more sunny climate. The scenery much resembles that of Switzerland, and of the north-west Himalaya, especially in the great contrast between the southern and northern exposures, the latter being always clothed with a dense vegetation. At the foot of this very steep mountain is a broad triangular flat, 5,270 feet above the sea, and 300 feet above the river, to which it descends by three level cultivated shelves. The village, consisting of a temple and twenty houses, is placed on the slope of the hill. I camped on the flat in May, before it became very swampy, close to some great blocks of gneiss, of which many lie on its surface: it was covered with tufts of sedge (like Carex stellulata), and fringed with scarlet rhododendron, walnut, Andromeda, Elæagnus (now bearing pleasant acid fruit), and small trees of a Photinia, a plant allied to hawthorn, of the leaves of which the natives make tea (as they do of Gualtheria, Andromeda, Vaccinium, and other allied plants). Rice, cultivated[142] in pools surrounded by low banks, was just peeping above ground; and scanty crops of millet, maize, and buckwheat flourished on the slopes around.
[142] Choongtam is in position and products analogous to Lelyp, on the Tambur (vol. i, page 204). Rice cultivation advances thus high up each valley, and at either place Bhoteeas replace the natives of the lower valleys.
The inhabitants of Choongtam are of Tibetan origin; few of them had seen an Englishman before, and they flocked out, displaying the most eager curiosity: the Lama and Phipun (or superior officer) of the Lachoong valley came to pay their respects with a troop of followers, and there was lolling out of tongues, and scratching of ears, at every sentence spoken, and every object of admiration. This extraordinary Tibetan salute at first puzzled me excessively, nor was it until reading MM. Huc and Gabet’s travels on my return to England, that I knew of its being the ton at Lhassa, and in all civilised parts of Tibet.
As the valley was under the Singtam Soubah’s authority, I experienced a good deal of opposition; and the Lama urged the wrath of the gods against my proceeding. This argument, I said, had been disposed of the previous year, and I was fortunate in recognising one of my Changachelling friends, who set forth my kindly offices to the Lamas of that convent, and the friendship borne me by its monks, and by those of Pemiongchi. Many other modes of dissuading me were attempted, but with Meepo’s assistance I succeeded in gaining my point. The difficulty and delays in remittance of food, caused by the landslips having destroyed the road, had reduced our provisions to a very low ebb; and it became not only impossible to proceed, but necessary to replenish my stores on the spot. At first provisions enough were brought to myself, for the Rajah had issued orders for my being cared for, and having some practice among the villagers in treating rheumatism and goîtres, I had the power of supplying my own larder; but I found it impossible to buy food for my people. At last, the real state of the case came out; that the Rajah having gone to Choombi, his usual summer-quarters in Tibet, the Dewan had issued orders that no food should be sold or given to my people, and that no roads were to be repaired during my stay in the country; thus cutting off my supplies from Dorjiling, and, in short, attempting to starve me out. At this juncture, Meepo received a letter from the Durbar purporting to be from the Rajah, commanding my immediate return, on the grounds that I had been long enough in the country for my objects: it was not addressed to me, and I refused to receive it as an official communication; following up my refusal by telling Meepo that if he thought his orders required it, he had better leave me and return to the Rajah, as I should not stir without directions from Dr. Campbell, except forwards. He remained, however, and said he had written to the Rajah, urging him to issue stringent orders for my party being provisioned.
We were reduced to a very short allowance before the long-expected supplies came, by which time our necessities had almost conquered my resolution not to take by force of the abundance I might see around, however well I might afterwards pay. It is but fair to state that the improvident villagers throughout Sikkim are extremely poor in vegetable food at this season, when the winter store is consumed, and the crops are still green. They are consequently obliged to purchase rice from the lower valleys, which, owing to the difficulties of transport, is very dear; and to obtain it they barter wool, blankets, musk, and Tibetan produce of all kinds. Still they had cattle, which they would willingly have sold to me, but for the Dewan’s orders.
There is a great difference between the vegetation of Dorjiling and that of similar elevations near Choongtam situated far within the Himalaya: this is owing to the steepness and dryness of the latter locality, where there is an absence of dense forest, which is replaced by a number of social grasses clothing the mountain sides, many new and beautiful kinds of rhododendrons, and a variety of European genera,[143] which (as I have elsewhere noticed) are either wholly absent from the damper ranges of Dorjiling, or found there several thousand feet higher up. On the hill above Choongtam village, I gathered, at 5000 to 6000 feet, Rhododendron arboreum and Dalhousiæ, which do not generally grow at Dorjiling below 7,500 feet.[144] The yew appears at 7000 feet, whilst, on the outer ranges (as on Tonglo), it is only found at 9,500 to 10,000 feet; and whereas on Tonglo it forms an immense tall tree, with long sparse branches and slender drooping twigs, growing amongst gigantic magnolias and oaks, at Choongtam it is small and rigid, and much resembling in appearance our churchyard yew.[145] At 8000 feet the Abies Brunoniana is found; a tree quite unknown further south; but neither the larch nor the Albies Smithiana (Khutrow) accompanied it, they being confined to still more northern regions.
[143] Deutzia, Saxifraga caliata, Thalictrum, Euphorbia, yellow violet, Labiatæ, Androsace, Leguminosæ, Coriaria, Delphinium, currant, Umbelliferæ, primrose, Anemone, Convallaria, Roscœa, Mitella, Herminium, Drosera.
[144] I collected here ten kinds of rhododendron, which, however, are not the social plants that they become at greater elevations. Still, in the delicacy and beauty of their flowers, four of them, perhaps, excel any others; they are, R. Aucklandii, whose flowers are five inches and a half in diameter; R. Maddeni, R. Dalhousiæ, and R. Edgeworthii, all white-flowered bushes, of which the two first rise to the height of small trees.
[145] The yew spreads east from Kashmir to the Assam Himalaya and the Khasia mountains; and the Japan, Philippine Island, Mexican, and other North American yews, belong to the same widely-diffused species. In the Khasia (its most southern limit) it is found as low as 5000 feet above the sea-level.
I have seldom had occasion to allude to snakes, which are rare and shy in most parts of the Himalaya; I, however, found an extremely venomous one at Choongtam; a small black viper, a variety of the cobra di capello,[146] which it replaces in the drier grassy parts of the interior of Sikkim, the large cobra not inhabiting in the mountain regions. Altogether I only collected about twelve species in Sikkim, seven of which are venomous, and all are dreaded by the Lepchas. An enormous hornet (Vespa magnifica, Sm.), nearly two inches long, was here brought to me alive in a cleft-stick, lolling out its great thorn-like sting, from which drops of a milky poison distilled: its sting is said to produce fatal fevers in men and cattle, which may very well be the case, judging from that of a smaller kind, which left great pain in my hand for two days, while a feeling of numbness remained in the arm for several weeks. It is called Vok by the Lepchas, a common name for any bee: its larvæ are said to be greedily eaten, as are those of various allied insects.
[146] Dr. Gray, to whom I am indebted for the following information, assures me that this reptile is not specifically distinct from the common Cobra of India; though all the mountain specimens of it which he has examined retain the same small size and dark colour. Of the other Sikkim reptiles which I procured seven are Colubridæ and innocuous; five Crotalidæ are venomous, three of which are new species belonging to the genera Parias and Trimesurus. Lizards are not abundant, but I found at Choongtam a highly curious one, Plestiodon Sikkimensis, Gray; a kind of Skink, whose only allies are two North American congeners; and a species of Agama (a chameleon-like lizard) which in many important points more resembled an allied American genus than an Asiatic one. The common immense earth-worm of Sikkim, Ichthyophis glutinosus, is a native of the Khasia mountains, Singapore, Ceylon and Java. It is a most remarkable fact, that whereas seven out of the twelve Sikkim snakes are poisonous, the sixteen species I procured in the Khasia mountains are innocuous.
Choongtam boasts a profusion of beautiful insects, amongst which the British swallow-tail butterfly (Papilio Machaon) disports itself in company with magnificent black, gold, and scarlet-winged butterflies, of the Trojan group, so typical of the Indian tropics. At night my tent was filled with small water-beetles (Berosi) that quickly put out the candle; and with lovely moths came huge cockchafers (Encerris Griffithii), and enormous and fœtid flying-bugs (of the genus Derecterix), which bear great horns on the thorax. The irritation of mosquito and midge bites, and the disgusting insects that clung with spiny legs to the blankets of my tent and bed, were often as effectual in banishing sleep, as were my anxious thoughts regarding the future.
The temple at Choongtam is a poor wooden building, but contains some interesting drawings of Lhassa, with its extensive Lamaseries and temples; they convey the idea of a town, gleaming, like Moscow, with gilded and copper roofs; but on a nearer aspect it is found to consist of a mass of stone houses, and large religious edifices many stories high, the walls of which are regularly pierced with small square ornamented windows.[147]
[147] MM. Huc and Gabet’s account of Lhassa is, I do not doubt, excellent as to particulars; but the trees which they describe as magnificent, and girdling the city, have uniformly been represented to me as poor stunted willows, apricots, poplars, and walnuts, confined to the gardens of the rich. No doubt the impression left by these objects on the minds of travellers from tree-less Tartary, and of Sikkimites reared amidst stupendous forests, must be widely different. The information concerning Lhassa collected by Timkowski, “Travels of the Russian Mission to China” (in 1821) is greatly exaggerated, though containing much that is true and curious. The dyke to protect the city from inundations I never heard of; but there is a current story in Sikkim that Lhassa is built in a lake-bed, which was dried up by a miracle of the Lamas, and that in heavy rain the earth trembles, and the waters bubble through the soil: a Dorjiling rain-fall, I have been assured, would wash away the whole city. Ermann (Travels in Siberia, i., p. 186), mentions a town (Klinchi, near Perm), thus built over subterraneous springs, and in constant danger of being washed away. MM. Huc and Gabet allude to the same tradition under another form. They say that the natives of the banks of the Koko-nor affirm that the waters of that lake once occupied a subterranean position beneath Lhassa, and that the waters sapped the foundations of the temples as soon as they were built, till withdrawn by supernatural agency.
There is nothing remarkable in the geology of Choongtam: the base of the hill consists of the clay and mica slates overlain by gneiss, generally dipping to the eastward; in the latter are granite veins, containing fine tourmalines. Actinolites are found in some highly metamorphic gneisses, brought by landslips from the neighbouring heights. The weather in May was cloudy and showery, but the rain which fell was far less in amount than that at Dorjiling: during the day the sun’s power was great; but though it rose between five and six a.m., it never appeared above the lofty peaked mountains that girdle the valley till eight a.m. Dark pines crest the heights around, and landslips score their flanks with white seams below; while streaks of snow remain throughout the month at 9000 feet above; and everywhere silvery torrents leap down to the Lachen and Lachoong.
Chapter XIX
Routes from Choongtam to Tibet frontier—Choice of that by the Lachen river—Arrival of Supplies—Departure—Features of the valley—Eatable Polygonum—Tumlong—Cross Taktoong river—Pines, larches, and other trees—Chateng pool—Water-plants and insects—Tukcham mountain—Lamteng village—Inhabitants—Alpine monkey—Botany of temperate Himalaya—European and American fauna—Japanese and Malayan genera—Superstitious objections to shooting—Customs of people—Rain—Run short of provisions—Altered position of Tibet frontier—Zemu Samdong—Imposition—Vegetation—Uses of pines—Ascent to Thlonok river—Balanophora wood for making cups—Snow-beds—Eatable mushrooms and Smilacina—Asarabacca—View of Kinchinjunga—Arum-roots, preparation of for food—Liklo mountain—Bebaviour of my party—Bridge constructed over Zemu—Cross river—Alarm of my party—Camp on Zemu river.
From this place there were two routes to Tibet, each of about six days’ journey. One lay to the north-west up the Lachen valley to the Kongra Lama pass, the other to the east up the Lachoong to the Donkia pass. The latter river has its source in small lakes in Sikkim, south of the Donkia mountain, a shoulder of which the pass crosses, commanding a magnificent view into Tibet. The Lachen, on the other hand (the principal source of the Teesta), rises beyond Sikkim in the Cholamoo lakes. The frontier at Kongra Lama was described to me as being a political, and not a natural boundary, marked out by cairns, standing on a plain, and crossing the Lachen river. To both Donkia and Kongra Lama I had every right to go, and was determined, if possible, to reach them, in spite of Meepo’s ignorance, our guide’s endeavours to frighten my party and mislead myself, and the country people’s dread of incurring the Dewan’s displeasure.
The Lachen valley being pronounced impracticable in the height of the rains, a month later, it behoved me to attempt it first, and it possessed the attraction of leading to a frontier described as far to the northward of the snowy Himalaya, on a lofty plateau, whose plants and animals were different from anything I had previously seen.
After a week the coolies arrived with supplies: they had been delayed by the state of the paths, and had consequently consumed a great part of my stock, reducing it to eight days’ allowance. I therefore divided my party, leaving the greater number at Choongtam, with a small tent, and instructions to forward all food to me as it arrived. I started with about fifteen attendants, on the 25th of May, for Lamteng, three marches up the Lachen.
Descending the step-formed terraces, I crossed the Lachen by a good cane bridge. The river is a headstrong torrent, and turbid from the vast amount of earthy matter which it bears along; and this character of extreme impetuosity, unbroken by any still bend, or even swirling pool, it maintains uninterruptedly at this season from 4000 to 10,000 feet. It is crossed three times, always by cane bridges, and I cannot conceive any valley of its nature to be more impracticable at such a season. On both sides the mountains rose, densely forest-clad, at an average angle of 35° to 40°, to 10,000 and 15,000 feet. Its extreme narrowness, and the grandeur of its scenery, were alike recalled to my mind, on visiting the Sachs valley in the Valais of Switzerland; from which, however, it differs in its luxuriant forest, and in the slopes being more uniform and less broken up into those imposing precipices so frequent in Switzerland, but which are wanting in the temperate regions of the Sikkim Himalaya.
At times we scrambled over rocks 1000 feet above the river, or descended into gorges, through whose tributary torrents we waded, or crossed swampy terraced flats of unstratified shingle above the stream; whilst it was sometimes necessary to round rocky promontories in the river, stemming the foaming torrent that pressed heavily against the chest as, one by one, we were dragged along by powerful Lepchas. Our halting-places were on flats close to the river, covered with large trees, and carpeted with a most luxuriant herbage, amongst which a wild buckwheat (Polygonum[148]) was abundant, which formed an excellent spinach: it is called “Pullop-bi”; a name I shall hereafter have occasion to mention with gratitude.
[148] Polygonum cymosum, Wall. This is a common Himalayan plant, and is also found in the Khasia mountains.
A few miles above Choongtam, we passed a few cottages on a very extensive terrace at Tumlong; but between this and Lamteng, the country is uninhabited, nor is it frequented during the rains. We consequently found that the roads had suffered, the little bridges and aids to climb precipices and cross landslips had been carried away, and at one place we were all but turned back. This was at the Taktoong river, a tributary on the east bank, which rushes down at an angle of 15°, in a sheet of silvery foam, eighteen yards broad. It does not, where I crossed it, flow in a deep gulley, having apparently raised its bed by an accumulation of enormous boulders; and a plank bridge was thrown across it, against whose slippery and narrow foot-boards the water dashed, loosening the supports on either bank, and rushing between their foundation stones.
My unwilling guide had gone ahead with some of the coolies: I had suspected him all along (perhaps unjustly) of avoiding the most practicable routes; but when I found him waiting for me at this bridge, to which he sarcastically pointed with his bow, I felt that had he known of it, to have made difficulties before would have been a work of supererogation. He seemed to think I should certainly turn back, and assured me there was no other crossing (a statement I afterwards found to be untrue); so, comforting myself with the hope that if the danger were imminent, Meepo would forcibly stop me, I took off my shoes, and walked steadily over: the tremor of the planks was like that felt when standing on the paddle-box of a steamer, and I was jerked up and down, as my weight pressed them into the boiling flood, which shrouded me with spray. I looked neither to the right nor to the left, lest the motion of the swift waters should turn my head, but kept my eye on the white jets d’eau springing up between the woodwork, and felt thankful when fairly on the opposite bank: my loaded coolies followed, crossing one by one without fear or hesitation. The bridge was swept into the Lachen very shortly afterwards.
Towards Lamteng, the path left the river, and passed through a wood of Abies Smithiana.[149] Larch appears at 9000 feet, with Abies Brunoniana. An austere crab-apple, walnut, and the willow of Babylon (the two latter perhaps cultivated), yellow jessamine and ash, all scarce trees in Sikkim, are more or less abundant in the valley, from 7000 to 8000 feet; as is an ivy, very like the English, but with fewer and smaller yellow or reddish berries; and many other plants,[150] not found at equal elevations on the outer ranges of the Himalaya.
[149] Also called A. Khutrow and Morinda. I had not before seen this tree in the Himalaya: it is a spruce fir, much resembling the Norway spruce in general appearance, but with longer pendulous branches. The wood is white, and considered indifferent, though readily cleft into planks; it is called “Seh.”
[150] Wood-sorrel, a white-stemmed bramble, birch, some maples, nut gigantic lily (Lilium giganteum), Euphorbia, Pedicularis, Spiræa, Philadelphus, Deutzia, Indigofera, and various other South Europe and North American genera.
Chateng, a spur from the lofty peak of Tukcham,[151] 19,472 feet high, rises 1000 feet above the west bank of the river; and where crossed, commands one of the finest alpine views in Sikkim. It was grassy, strewed with huge boulders of gneiss, and adorned with clumps of park-like pines: on the summit was a small pool, beautifully fringed with bushy trees of white rose, a white-blossomed apple, a Pyrus like Aria, another like mountain-ash, scarlet rhododendrons (arboreum and barbatum), holly, maples, and Goughia,[152] a curious evergreen laurel-like tree: there were also Daphnes, purple magnolia, and a pink sweet-blossomed Sphærostema. Many English water-plants[153] grew in the water, but I found no shells; tadpoles, however, swarmed, which later in the season become large frogs. The “painted-lady” butterfly (Cynthia Cardui), and a pretty “blue” were flitting over the flowers, together with some great tropical kinds, that wander so far up these valleys, accompanying Marlea, the only subtropical tree that ascends to 8,500 feet in the interior of Sikkim.
[151] “Tuk” signifies head in Lepcha, and “cheam” or “chaum,” I believe, has reference to the snow. The height of Tukcham has been re-calculated by Capt. R. Strachey, with angles taken by myself, at Dorjiling and Jillapahar, and is approximate only.
[152] This fine plant was named (Wight, “Ic. Plant.”) in honour of Capt. Gough, son of the late commander-in-chief, and an officer to whom the botany of the peninsula of India is greatly indebted. It is a large and handsome evergreen, very similar in foliage to a fine rhododendron, and would prove an invaluable ornament on our lawns, if its hardier varieties were introduced into this country.
[153] Sparganium, Typha, Potamogeton, Callitriche, Utricularia, sedges and rushes.
The river runs close tinder the eastern side of the valley, which slopes so steeply as to appear for many miles almost a continuous landslip, 2000 feet high.
Lamteng village, where I arrived on the 27th of May, is quite concealed by a moraine to the south, which, with a parallel ridge on the north, forms a beautiful bay in the mountains, 8,900 feet above the sea, and 1000 above the Lachen. The village stands on a grassy and bushy flat, around which the pine-clad mountains rise steeply to the snowy peaks and black cliffs which tower above. It contains about forty houses, forming the winter-quarters of the inhabitants of the valley, who, in summer, move with their flocks and herds to the alpine pastures of the Tibet frontier. The dwellings are like those described at Wallanchoon, but the elevation being lower, and the situation more sheltered, they are more scattered; whilst on account of the dampness of the climate, they are raised higher from the ground, and the shingles with which they are tiled (made of Abies Webbiana) decay in two or three years. Many are painted lilac, with the gables in diamonds of red, black, and white: the roofs are either of wood, or of the bark of Abies Brunoniana, held down by large stones: within they are airy and comfortable. They are surrounded by a little cultivation of buck-wheat, radishes, turnips, and mustard. The inhabitants, though paying rent to the Sikkim Rajah, consider themselves as Tibetans, and are so in language, dress, features, and origin: they seldom descend to Choongtam, but yearly travel to the Tibetan towns of Jigatzi, Kambajong, Giantchi, and even to Lhassa, having always commercial and pastoral transactions with the Tibetans, whose flocks are pastured on the Sikkim mountains during summer, and who trade with the plains of India through the medium of these villagers.
The snow having disappeared from elevations below 11,000 feet, the yaks, sheep, and ponies had just been driven 2000 feet up the valley, and the inhabitants were preparing to follow, with their tents and goats, to summer quarters at Tallum and Tungu. Many had goîtres and rheumatism, for the cure of which they flocked to my tent; dry-rubbing for the latter, and tincture of iodine for the former, gained me some credit as a doctor: I could, however, procure no food beyond trifling presents of eggs, meal, and more rarely, fowls.
On arriving, I saw a troop of large monkeys[154] gambolling in a wood of Abies Brunoniana: this surprised me, as I was not prepared to find so tropical an animal associated with a vegetation typical of a boreal climate. The only other quadrupeds seen here were some small earless rats, and musk-deer; the young female of which latter sometimes afforded me a dish of excellent venison; being, though dark-coloured and lean, tender, sweet, and short-fibred. Birds were scarce, with the exception of alpine pigeons (Columba leuconota), red-legged crows (Corvus graculus, L.), and the horned pheasant (Meleagris Satyra, L.). In this month insects are scarce, Elater and a black earwig being the most frequent: two species of Serica also flew into my tent, and at night moths, closely resembling European ones, came from the fir-woods. The vegetation in the, neighbourhood of Lamteng is European and North American; that is to say, it unites the boreal and temperate floras of the east and west hemispheres; presenting also a few features peculiar to Asia. This is a subject of very great importance in physical geography; as a country combining the botanical characters of several others, affords materials for tracing the direction in which genera and species have migrated, the causes that favour their migrations, and the laws that determine the types or forms of one region, which represent those of another. A glance at the map will show that Sikkim is, geographically, peculiarly well situated for investigations of this kind, being centrically placed, whether as regards south-eastern Asia or the Himalayan chain. Again, the Lachen valley at this spot is nearly equi-distant from the tropical forests of the Terai and the sterile mountains of Tibet, for which reason representatives both of the dry central Asiatic and Siberian, and of the humid Malayan floras meet there.
[154] Macacus Pelops? Hodgson. This is a very different species from the tropical kind seen in Nepal, and mentioned at vol. i, p. 278.
The mean temperature of Lamteng (about 50°) is that of the isothermal which passes through Britain in lat. 52°, and east Europe in lat. 48°, cutting the parallel of 45° in Siberia (due north of Lamteng itself), descending to lat. 42° on the east coast of Asia, ascending to lat. 48° on the west of America, and descending to that of New York in the United States. This mean temperature is considerably increased by descending to the bed of the Lachen at 8000 feet, and diminished by ascending Tukcham to 14,000 feet, which gives a range of 6000 feet of elevation, and 20° of mean temperature. But as the climate and vegetation become arctic at 12,000 feet, it will be as well to confine my observations to the flora of 7000 to 10,000 feet; of the mean temperature, namely, between 53° and 43°, the isothermal lines corresponding to which embrace, on the surface of the globe, at the level of the sea, a space varying in different meridians from three to twelve degrees of latitude.[155] At first sight it appears incredible that such a limited area, buried in the depths of the Himalaya, should present nearly all the types of the flora of the north temperate zone; not only, however, is this the case, but space is also found at Lamteng for the intercalation of types of a Malayan flora, otherwise wholly foreign to the north temperate region.
[155] On the west coast of Europe, where the distance between these isothermal lines is greatest, this belt extends almost from Stockholm and the Shetlands to Paris.
A few examples will show this. Amongst trees the Conifers are conspicuous at Lamteng, and all are of genera typical both of Europe and North America: namely, silver fir, spruce, larch, and juniper, besides the yew: there are also species of birch, alder, ash, apple, oak, willow, cherry, bird-cherry, mountain-ash, thorn, walnut, hazel, maple, poplar, ivy, holly, Andromeda, Rhamnus. Of bushes; rose, berberry, bramble, rhododendron, elder, cornel, willow, honeysuckle, currant, Spiræa, Viburnum, Cotoneaster, Hippophæ. Herbaceous plants[156] are far too numerous to be enumerated, as a list would include most of the common genera of European and North American plants.
[156] As an example, the ground about my tent was covered with grasses and sedges, amongst which grew primroses, thistles, speedwell, wild leeks, Arum, Convallaria, Callitriche, Oxalis, Ranunculus, Potentilla, Orchis, Chærophyllum, Galium, Paris, and Anagallis; besides cultivated weeds of shepherd’s-purse, dock, mustard, Mithridate cress, radish, turnip, Thlaspi arvense, and Poa annua.
Of North American genera, not found in Europe, were Buddleia, Podophyllum, Magnolia, Sassafras? Tetranthera, Hydrangea, Diclytra, Aralia, Panax, Symplocos, Trillium, and Clintonia. The absence of heaths is also equally a feature in the flora of North America. Of European genera, not found in North America, the Lachen valley has Coriaria, Hypecoum, and various Cruciferæ. The Japanese and Chinese floras are represented in Sikkim by Camellia, Deutzia, Stachyurus, Aucuba, Helwingia, Stauntonia, Hydrangea, Skimmia, Eurya, Anthogonium, and Enkianthus. The Malayan by Magnolias, Talauma, many vacciniums and rhododendrons, Kadsura, Goughia, Marlea, both coriaceous and deciduous-leaved Cælogyne, Oberonia, Cyrtosia, Calanthe, and other orchids; Ceropegia, Parochetus, Balanophora, and many Scitamineæ; and amongst trees, by Engelhardtia, Goughia, and various laurels.
Shortly after my arrival at Lamteng, the villagers sent to request that I would not shoot, as they said it brought on excessive rain,[157] and consequent damage to the crops. My necessities did not admit of my complying with their wish unless I could procure food by other means; and I at first paid no attention to their request. The people, however, became urgent, and the Choongtam Lama giving his high authority to the superstition, it appeared impolitic to resist their earnest supplication; though I was well aware that the story was trumped up by the Lama for the purpose of forcing me to return. I yielded on the promise of provisions being supplied from the village, which was done to a limited extent; and I was enabled to hold out till more arrived from Dorjiling, now, owing to the state of the roads, at the distance of twenty days’ march. The people were always civil and kind: there was no concealing the fact that the orders were stringent, prohibiting my party being supplied with food, but many of the villagers sought opportunities by night of replenishing my stores. Superstitious and timorous, they regard a doctor with great veneration; and when to that is added his power of writing, drawing, and painting, their admiration knows no bounds: they flocked round my tent all day, scratching their ears, lolling out their tongues, making a clucking noise, smiling, and timidly peeping over my shoulder, but flying in alarm when my little dog resented their familiarity by snapping at their legs. The men spend the whole day in loitering about, smoking and spinning wool: the women in active duties; a few were engaged in drying the leaves of a shrub (Symplocos) for the Tibet market, which are used as a yellow dye; whilst, occasionally, a man might be seen cutting a spoon or a yak-saddle out of rhododendron wood.
[157] In Griffith’s narrative of “Pemberton’s Mission to Bhotan” (“Posthumous Papers, Journal,” p. 283), it is mentioned that the Gylongs (Lamas) attributed a violent storm to the members of the mission shooting birds.
During my stay at Lamteng, the weather was all but uniformly cloudy and misty, with drizzling rain, and a southerly, or up-valley wind, during the day, which changed to an easterly one at night: occasionally distant thunder was heard. My rain-gauges showed very little rain compared with what fell at Dorjiling during the same period; the clouds were thin, both sun and moon shining through them, without, however, the former warming the soil: hence my tent was constantly wet, nor did I once sleep in a dry bed till the 1st of June, which ushered in the month with a brilliant sunny day. At night it generally rained in torrents, and the roar of landslips and avalanches was then all but uninterrupted for hour after hour: sometimes it was a rumble, at others a harsh grating sound, and often accompanied with the crashing of immense timber-trees, or the murmur of the distant snowy avalanches. The amount of denudation by atmospheric causes is here quite incalculable; and I feel satisfied that the violence of the river at this particular part of its course (where it traverses those parts of the valleys which are most snowy and rainy), is proximately due to impediments thus accumulated in its bed.
It was sometimes clear at sunrise, and I made many ascents of Tukcham, hoping for a view of the mountains towards the passes; but I was only successful on one occasion, when I saw the table top of Kinchinjhow, the most remarkable, and one of the most distant peaks of dazzling snow which is seen from Dorjiling, and which, I was told, is far beyond Sikkim, in Tibet.[158] I kept up a constant intercourse with Choongtam, sending my plants thither to be dried, and gradually reducing my party as our necessities urged my so doing; lastly, I sent back the shooters, who had procured very little, and whose occupation was now gone.
[158] Such, however, is not the case; Kinchinjhow is on the frontier of Sikkim, though a considerable distance behind the most snowy of the Sikkim mountains.
On the 2nd of June, I received the bad news that a large party of coolies had been sent from Dorjiling with rice, but that being unable or afraid to pass the landslips, they had returned: we had now no food except a kid, a few handfuls of flour, and some potatos, which had been sent up from Choongtam. All my endeavours to gain information respecting the distance and position of the frontier were unavailing; probably, indeed, the Lama and Phipun (or chief man of the village), were the only persons who knew; the villagers calling all the lofty pastures a few marches beyond Lamteng “Bhote” or “Cheen” (Tibet). Dr. Campbell had procured for me information by which I might recognise the frontier were I once on it; but no description could enable me to find my way in a country so rugged and forest-clad, through tortuous and perpetually forking valleys, along often obliterated paths, and under cloud and rain. To these difficulties must be added the deception of the rulers, and the fact (of which I was not then aware), that the Tibet frontier was formerly at Choongtam; but from the Lepchas constantly harassing the Tibetans, the latter, after the establishment of the Chinese rule over their country, retreated first to Zemu Samdong, a few hours walk above Lamteng, then to Tallum Samdong, 2000 feet higher; and, lastly, to Kongra Lama, 16,000 feet up the west flank of Kinchinjhow.
On the third of June I took a small party, with my tent, and such provisions as I had, to explore up the river. On hearing of my intention, the Phipun volunteered to take me to the frontier, which he said was only two hours distant, at Zemu Samdong, where the Lachen receives the Zemu river from the westward: this I knew must be false, but I accepted his services, and we started, accompanied by a large body of villagers, who eagerly gathered plants for me along the road.
The scenery is very pretty; the path crosses extensive and dangerous landslips, or runs through fine woods of spruce and Abies Brunoniana, and afterwards along the river-banks, which are fringed with willow (called “Lama”), and Hippophæ. The great red rose (Rosa macrophylla), one of the most beautiful Himalayan plants, whose single flowers are as large as the palm of the hand, was blossoming, while golden Potentillas and purple primroses flowered by the stream, and Pyrola in the fir-woods.
Just above the fork of the valley, a wooden bridge (Samdong) crosses the Zemu, which was pointed out to me as the frontier, and I was entreated to respect two sticks and a piece of worsted stretched across it; this I thought too ridiculous, so as my followers halted on one side, I went on the bridge, threw the sticks into the stream, crossed, and asked the Phipun to follow; the people laughed, and came over: he then told me that he had authority to permit of my botanising there, but that I was in Cheen, and that he would show me the guard-house to prove the truth of his statement. He accordingly led me up a steep bank to an extensive broad flat, several hundred feet above the river, and forming a triangular base to the great spur which, rising steeply behind, divides the valley. This flat was marshy and covered with grass; and buried in the jungle were several ruined stone houses, with thick walls pierced with loopholes: these had no doubt been occupied by Tibetans at the time when this was the frontier.
The elevation which I had attained (that of the river being 8,970 feet) being excellent for botanising, I camped; and the villagers, contented with the supposed success of their strategy, returned to Lamteng.
My guide from the Durbar had staid behind at Lainteng, and though Meepo and all my men well knew that this was not the frontier, they were ignorant as to its true position, nor could we even ascertain which of the rivers was the Lachen.[159] The only routes I possessed indicated two paths northwards from Lamteng, neither crossing a river: and I therefore thought it best to remain at Zemu Samdong till provisions should arrive. I accordingly halted for three days, collecting many new and beautiful plants, and exploring the roads, of which five (paths or yak-tracks) diverged from this point, one on either bank of each river, and one leading up the fork.
[159] The eastern afterwards proved to be the Lachen.
On one occasion I ascended the steep hill at the fork; it was dry and rocky, and crowned with stunted pines. Stacks of different sorts of pine-wood were stored on the flat at its base, for export to Tibet, all thatched with the bark of Abies Brunoniana. Of these the larch (Larix Griffithii, “Sah”), splits well, and is the most durable of any; but the planks are small, soft, and white.[160] The silver fir (Abies Webbiana, “Dunshing”) also splits well; it is white, soft, and highly prized for durability. The wood of Abies Brunoniana (“Semadoong”) is like the others in appearance, but is not durable; its bark is however very useful. The spruce (Abies Smithiana, “Seh”) has also white wood, which is employed for posts and beams.[161] These are the only pines whose woods are considered very useful; and it is a curious circumstance that none produce any quantity of resin, turpentine, or pitch; which may perhaps be accounted for by the humidity of the climate.
[160] I never saw this wood to be red, close-grained, and hard, like that of the old Swiss larch; nor does it ever reach so great a size.
[161] These woods are all soft and loose in grain, compared with their European allies.
Pinus longifolia (called by the Lepchas “Gniet-koong,” and by the Bhoteeas “Teadong”) only grows in low valleys, where better timber is abundant. The weeping blue juniper (Juniperus recurva, “Deschoo”), and the arboreous black one (called “Tchokpo”)[162] yield beautiful wood, like that of the pencil cedar,[163] but are comparatively scarce, as is the yew (Taxus baccata, “Tingschi”), whose timber is red. The “Tchenden,” or funereal cypress, again, is valued only for the odour of its wood: Pinus excelsa, “Tongschi,” though common in Bhotan, is, as I have elsewhere remarked, not found in east Nepal or Sikkim; the wood is admirable, being durable, close-grained, and so resinous as to be used for flambeaux and candles. On the flat were flowering a beautiful magnolia with globular sweet-scented flowers like snow-balls, several balsams, with species of Convallaria, Cotoneaster, Gentian, Spiræa, Euphorbia, Pedicularis, and honeysuckle. On the hill-side were creeping brambles, lovely yellow, purple, pink, and white primroses, white-flowered Thalictrum and Anemone, berberry, Podophyllum, white rose, fritillary, Lloydia, etc. On the flanks of Tukcham, in the bed of a torrent, I gathered many very alpine plants, at the comparatively low elevation of 10,000 feet, as dwarf willows, Pinguicula, (a genus not previously found in the Himalaya), Oxyria, Adrosace, Tofieldia, Arenaria, saxifrages, and two dwarf heath-like Andromedas.[164] The rocks were all of gneiss, with granite veins, tourmaline, and occasionally pieces of pure plumbago.
[162] This I have, vol. i. p. 256, referred to the J. excelsa of the north-west Himalaya, a plant which under various names is found in many parts of Europe and many parts of Europe and North America; but since then Dr. Thomson and I have had occasion to compare my Sikkim conifers with the north-west Himalayan ones and we have found that this Sikkim species is probably new, and that J. excelsa is not found east of Nepal.
[163] Also a juniper, from Bermuda (J. Bermudiana).
[164] Besides these, a month later, the following flowered in profusion: scarlet Buddleia? gigantic lily, yellow jasmine, Aster, Potentilla, several kinds of orchids, willow-herb (Epilobium), purple Roscœa, Neillia, Morina, many grasses and Umbelliferæ. These formed a rank and dense herbaceous, mostly annual vegetation, six feet high, bound together with Cuscuta, climbing Leguminosæ, and Ceropegia. The great summer heat and moisture here favour the ascent of various tropical genera, of which I found in August several Orchideæ (Calanthe, Microstylis, and Cœlogyne), also Begonia, Bryonia, Cynanchum, Aristolochia, Eurya, Procris, Acanthaceæ, and Cyrtandraseæ.
Our guide had remained at Lamteng, on the plea of a sore on his leg from leech-bites: his real object, however, was to stop a party on their way to Tibet with madder and canes, who, had they continued their journey, would inevitably have pointed out the road to me. The villagers themselves now wanted to proceed to the pasturing-grounds on the frontier; so the Phipun sent me word that I might proceed as far as I liked up the east bank of the Zemu. I had explored the path, and finding it practicable, and likely to intersect a less frequented route to the frontier (that crossing the Tekonglah pass from Bah, see p. 13), I determined to follow it. A supply of food arrived from Dorjiling on the 5th of June, reduced, however, to one bag of rice, but with encouraging letters, and the assurance that more would follow at once. My men, of whom I bad eight, behaved admirably, although our diet had for five days chiefly consisted of Polygonum (“Pullop-bi”), wild leeks (“Lagook”), nettles and Procris (an allied, and more succulent herb), eked out by eight pounds of Tibet meal (“Tsamba”), which I had bought for ten shillings by stealth from the villagers. What concerned me most was the destruction of my plants by constant damp, and the want of sun to dry the papers; which reduced my collections to a tithe of what they would otherwise have been.
From Zemu Samdong the valley runs north-west, for two marches, to the junction of the Zemu with the Thlonok, which rises on the north-east flank of Kinchinjunga: at this place I halted for several days, while building a bridge over the Thlonok. The path runs first through a small forest of birch, alder, and maple, on the latter of which I found Balanophora[165] growing abundantly: this species produces the great knots on the maple roots, from which the Tibetans form the cups mentioned by MM. Huc and Gabet. I was so fortunate as to find a small store of these knots, cleaned, and cut ready for the turner, and hidden behind a stone by some poor Tibetan, who had never retained to the spot: they had evidently been there a very long time.
[165] A curious leafless parasite, mentioned at vol. i, p. 133.
In the ravines there were enormous accumulations of ice, the result of avalanches; one of them crossed the river, forming a bridge thirty feet thick, at an elevation of only 9,800 feet above the sea. This ice-bridge was 100 yards broad, and flanked by heaps of boulders, the effects of combined land and snowslips. These stony places were covered with a rich herbage of rhubarb, primroses, Euphorbia, Sedum, Polygonum, Convallaria, and a purple Dentaria (“Kenroop-bi”) a cruciferous plant much eaten as a pot-herb. In the pinewoods a large mushroom (“Onglau,”[166] Tibet.) was abundant, which also forms a favourite article of food. Another pot-herb (to which I was afterwards more indebted than any) was a beautiful Smilacina, which grows from two to five feet high, and has plaited leaves and crowded panicles of white bell-shaped flowers, like those of its ally the lily of the valley, which it also resembles in its mucilaginous properties. It is called “Chokli-bi,”[167] and its young flower-heads, sheathed in tender green leaves, form an excellent vegetable. Nor must I forget to include amongst the eatable plants of this hungry country, young shoots of the mountain-bamboo, which are good either raw or boiled, and may be obtained up to 12,000 feet in this valley. A species of Asarum (Asarabacca) grows in the pine-woods; a genus not previously known to be Himalayan. The root, like its English medicinal congener, has a strong and peculiar smell. At 10,000 feet Abies Webbiana commences, with a close undergrowth of a small twiggy holly. This, and the dense thicket of rhododendron[168] on the banks of the river and edges of the wood, rendered the march very fatiguing, and swarms of midges kept up a tormenting irritation.
[166] Cortinarius Emodensis of the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, who has named and described it from my specimens and drawings. It is also called “Yungla tchamo” by the Tibetans, the latter word signifying a toadstool. Mr. Berkeley informs me that the whole vast genus Cortinarius scarcely possesses a single other edible species; he adds that C. violaceus and violaceo-cinereus are eaten in Austria and Italy, but not always with safety.
[167] It is also found on the top of Sinchul, near Dorjiling.
[168] Of which I had already gathered thirteen kinds in this valley.
The Zemu continued an impetuous muddy torrent, whose hoarse voice, mingled with the deep grumbling noise[169] of the boulders rolling along its bed, was my lullaby for many nights. Its temperature at Zemu Samdong was 45° to 46° in June. At its junction with the Thlonok, it comes down a steep gulley from the north, foreshortened into a cataract 1000 feet high, and appearing the smaller stream of the two; whilst the Thlonok winds down from the snowy face of Kinchinjunga, which is seen up the valley, bearing W.S.W., about twenty miles distant. All around are lofty and rocky mountains, sparingly wooded with pines and larch, chiefly on their south flanks, which receive the warm, moist, up-valley winds; the faces exposed to the north being colder and more barren: exactly the reverse of what is the case at Choongtam, where the rocky and sunny south-exposed flanks are the driest.
[169] The dull rumbling noise thus produced is one of the most singular phenomena in these mountains, and cannot fail to strike the observer. At night, especially, the sound seems increased, the reason of which is not apparent, for in these regions, so wanting in animal life, the night is no stiller than the day, and the melting of snow being less, the volume of waters must be somewhat, though not conspicuously, diminished. The interference of sound by heated currents of different density is the most obvious cause of the diminished reverberation during the day, to which Humboldt adds the increased tension of vapour, and possibly an echo from its particles.
My tent was pitched on a broad terrace, opposite the junction of the Zemu and Thlonok, and 10,850 feet above the sea. It was sheltered by some enormous transported blocks of gneiss, fifteen feet high, and surrounded by a luxuriant vegetation of most beautiful rhododendrons in full flower, willow, white rose, white flowered cherry, thorn, maple and birch. Some great tuberous-rooted Arums[170] were very abundant; and the ground was covered with small pits, in which were large wooden pestles: these are used in the preparation of food from the arums, to which the miserable inhabitants of the valley have recourse in spring, when their yaks are calving. The roots are bruised with the pestles, and thrown into these holes with water. Acetous fermentation commences in seven or eight days, which is a sign that the acrid poisonous principle is dissipated: the pulpy, sour, and fibrous mass is then boiled and eaten; its nutriment being the starch, which exists in small quantities, and which they have not the skill to separate by grating and washing. This preparation only keeps a few days, and produces bowel complaints, and loss of the skin and hair, especially when insufficiently fermented. Besides this, the “chokli-bi,” and many other esculents, abounded here; and we had great need of them before leaving this wild uninhabited region.
[170] Two species of Arisæma, called “Tong” by the Tibetans, and “Sinkree” by the Lepchas.
I repeatedly ascended the north flank of Tukcham along a watercourse, by the side of which were immense slips of rocks and snow-beds; the mountain-side being excessively steep. Some of the masses of gneiss thus brought down were dangerously poised on slopes of soft shingle, and daily moved a little downwards. All the rocks were gneiss and granite, with radiating crystals of tourmaline as thick as the thumb. Below 12,000 to 13,000 feet the mountain-sides were covered with a dense scrub of rhododendron bushes, except where broken by rocks, landslips, and torrents: above this the winter’s snow lay deep, and black rocks and small glaciers, over which avalanches were constantly falling with a sullen roar, forbade all attempts to proceed. My object in ascending was chiefly to obtain views and compass-bearings, in which I was generally disappointed: once only I had a magnificent prospect of Kinchinjunga, sweeping down in one unbroken mass of glacier and ice, fully 14,000 feet high, to the head of the Thlonok river, whose upper valley appeared a broad bay of ice; doubtless forming one of the largest glaciers in the Himalaya, and increased by lateral feeders that flow into it from either flank of the valley. The south side of this (the Thlonok) valley is formed by a range from Kinchinjunga, running east to Tukcham, where it terminates: from it rises the beautiful mountain Liklo,[171] 22,582 feet high, which, from Dorjiling, appears as a sharp peak, but is here seen to be a jagged crest running north and south. On the north flank of the valley the mountains are more sloping and black, with patches of snow above 15,000 feet, but little anywhere else, except on another beautiful peak (alt. 19,240 feet) marked D3 on the map. This flank is also continuous from Kinchin; it divides Sikkim from Tibet, and runs north-east to the great mountain Chomiomo (which was not visible), the streams from its north flank flowing into the Arun river (in Tibet). A beautiful blue arch of sky spanned all this range, indicating the dry Tibetan climate beyond.
[171] D2 of the peaks laid down in Colonel Waugh’s “Trigonometrical Survey from Dorjiling,” I believe to be the “Liklo” of Dr. Campbell’s itineraries from Dorjiling to Lhassa, compiled from the information of the traders (See “Bengal Asiatic Society’s Journal” for 1848); the routes in which proved of the utmost value to me.
I made two futile attempts to ascend the Thlonok river to the great glaciers at the foot of Kinchinjunga, following the south bank, and hoping to find a crossing-place, and so to proceed north to Tibet. The fall of the river is not great at this part of its course, nor up to 12,000 feet, which was the greatest height I could attain, and about eight miles beyond my tents; above that point, at the base of Liklo, the bed of the valley widens, and the rhododendron shrubbery was quite impervious, while the sides of the mountain were inaccessible. We crossed extensive snow-beds, by cutting holes in their steep faces, and rounded rocks in the bed of the torrent, dragging one another through the violent current, whose temperature was below 40°.
On these occasions, the energy of Meepo, Nimbo (the chief of the coolies) and the Lepcha boys, was quite remarkable, and they were as keenly anxious to reach the holy country of Tibet as I could possibly be. It was sometimes dark before we got back to our tents, tired, with torn clothes and cut feet and hands, returning to a miserable dinner of boiled herbs; but never did any of them complain, or express a wish to leave me. In the evenings and mornings they were always busy, changing my plants, and drying the papers over a sulky fire at my tent-door; and at night they slept, each wrapt in his own blanket, huddled together under a rock, with another blanket thrown over them all. Provisions reached us so seldom, and so reduced in quantity, that I could never allow more than one pound of rice to each man in a day, and frequently during this trying month they had not even that; and I eked out our meagre supply with a few ounces of preserved meats, occasionally “splicing the main brace” with weak rum and water.
At the highest point of the valley which I reached, water boiled at 191·3, indicating an elevation of 11,903 feet. The temperature at 1 p.m. was nearly 70°, and of the wet bulb 55°, indicating a dryness of 0·462, and dew point 47·0. Such phenomena of heat and dryness are rare and transient in the wet valleys of Sikkim, and show the influence here of the Tibetan climate.[172]
[172] I gathered here, amongst an abundance of alpine species, all of European and arctic type, a curious trefoil, the Parochetus communis, which ranges through 9000 feet of elevation on the Himalaya, and is also found in Java and Ceylon.
After boiling my thermometer on these occasions, I generally made a little tea for the party; a refreshment to which they looked forward with child-like eagerness. The fairness with which these good-hearted people used to divide the scanty allowance, and afterwards the leaves, which are greatly relished, was an engaging trait in their simple character: I have still vividly before me their sleek swarthy faces and twinkling Tartar eyes, as they lay stretched on the ground in the sun, or crouched in the sleet and snow beneath some sheltering rock; each with his little polished wooden cup of tea, watching my notes and instruments with curious wonder, asking, “How high are we?” “How cold is it?” and comparing the results with those of other stations, with much interest and intelligence.
On the 11th June, my active people completed a most ingenious bridge of branches of trees, bound by withes of willow; by which I crossed to the north bank, where I camped on an immense flat terrace at the junction of the rivers, and about fifty feet above their bed. The first step or ascent from the river is about five feet high, and formed of water-worn boulders, pebbles, and sand, scarcely stratified: the second, fully 1000 yards broad, is ten feet high, and swampy. The uppermost is fifteen feet above the second, and is covered with gigantic boulders, and vast rotting trunks of fallen pines, buried in an impenetrable jungle of dwarf small-leaved holly and rhododendrons. The surface was composed of a rich vegetable mould, which, where clear of forest, supported a rank herbage, six to eight feet high.[173]
[173] This consisted of grasses, sedges, Bupleurum, rhubarb, Ranunculus, Convallaria, Smilacina, nettles, thistles, Arum, balsams, and the superb yellow Meconopsis Nepalensis, whose racemes of golden poppy-like flowers were as broad as the palm of the hand; it grows three and even six feet high, and resembles a small hollyhock; whilst a stately Heracleum, ten feet high, towered over all. Forests of silver fir, with junipers and larch, girdled these flats and on their edges grew rhododendrons, scarlet Spiræa, several honeysuckles, white Clematis, and Viburnum. Ferns are much scarcer in the pine-woods than elsewhere in the forest regions of the Himalaya. In this valley (alt. 10,850 feet), I found only two kinds; Hymenophyllum, Lomaria, Cystopteris, Davallia, two Polypodia, and several Aspidia and Asplenia. Selaginella ascends to Zemu Samdong (9000 feet). The Pteris aquilina (brake) does not ascend above 10,000 feet.
Our first discovery, after crossing, was of a good bridge across the Zemu, above its junction, and of a path leading down to Zemu Samdong; this was, however, scarcely traceable up either stream. My men were better housed here in sheds: and I made several more ineffectual attempts to ascend the valley to the glaciers. The path, gradually vanishing, ran alternately through fir-woods, and over open grassy spots, covered with vegetation, amongst which the gigantic arum was plentiful, whose roots seemed to be the only attraction in this wet and miserable valley.
On my return one day, I found my people in great alarm, the Phipun having sent word that we were on the Tibet side of the rivers, and that Tibetan troops were coming to plunder my goods, and carry my men into slavery. I assured them he only wanted to frighten them; that the Cheen soldiers were civil orderly people; and that as long as Meepo was with us, there was no cause for fear. Fortunately a young musk-deer soon afterwards broke cover close to the tent, and its flesh wonderfully restored their courage: still I was constantly harassed by threats; some of my people were suffering from cold and bowel complaints, and I from rheumatism; while one fine lad, who came from Dorjiling, was delirious with a violent fever, contracted in the lower valleys, which sadly dispirited my party.
Having been successful in finding a path, I took my tent and a few active lads 1000 feet up the Zemu, camping on a high rock above the forest region, at 12,070 feet; hoping thence to penetrate northwards. I left my collections in the interim at the junction of the rivers, where the sheds and an abundance of firewood were great advantages for preserving the specimens. At this elevation we were quite free from midges and leeches (the latter had not appeared above 11,500 feet), but the weather continued so uniformly rainy and bad, that we could make no progress. I repeatedly followed the river for several miles, ascending to 13,300 feet; but though its valley widened, and its current was less rapid, the rhododendron thickets below, and the cliffs above, defeated all endeavours to reach the drier climate beyond, of which I had abundant evidence in the arch of brilliant blue that spanned the heavens to the north, beyond a black canopy of clouds that hid everything around, and poured down rain without one day’s intermission, during the eight which I spent here.
Chapter XX
Camp on Zemu river—Scenery—Falling rocks—Tukcham mountain—Height of glaciers—Botany—Gigantic rhubarb—Insects—Storm—Temperature of rivers—Behaviour of Lachen Phipun—Hostile conduct of Bhoteeas—View from mountains above camp—Descend to Zemu Samdong—Vegetation—Letters from Dorjiling—Arrival of Singtam Soubah—Presents from Rajah—Parties collecting Arum-roots—Insects—Ascend Lachen river—Thakya-zong—Tallum Samdong village—Cottages—Mountains—Plants—Entomology—Weather—Halo—Diseases— Conduct of Singtam Soubah—His character and illness—Agrees to take me to Kongra Lama—Tungu—Appearance of country—Houses—Poisoning by arum-roots—Yaks and calves—Tibet ponies—Journey to Kongra Lama—Tibetan tents—Butter, curds, and churns—Hospitality—Kinchinjhow and Chomiomo—Magnificent Scenery—Reach Kongra Lama Pass.
My little tent was pitched in a commanding situation, on a rock fifty feet above the Zemu, overlooking the course of that river to its junction with the Thlonok. The descent of the Zenlu in one thousand feet is more precipitous than that of any other river of its size with which I am acquainted in Sikkim, yet immediately above my camp it was more tranquil than at any part of its course onwards to the plains of India, whether as the Zemu, Lachen or Teesta. On the west bank a fine mountain rose in steep ridges and shrubby banks to 15,000 feet; on the east a rugged cliff towered above the stream, and from this, huge masses of rock were ever and anon precipitated into the torrent, with a roar that repeatedly spread consternation amongst us. During rains especially, and at night, when the chilled atmospheric currents of air descend, and the sound is not dissipated as in the day-time, the noise of these falls is sufficiently alarming. My tent was pitched near the base of the cliff, and so high above the river, that I had thought it beyond the reach of danger; but one morning I found that a large fragment of granite had been hurled during the night to my very door, my dog having had a very narrow escape. To what depth the accumulation at the base of this cliff may reach, I had no means of judging, but the rapid slope of the river-bed is mainly due to this, and to old moraines at the mouth of the valley below. I have seen few finer sights than the fall of these stupendous blocks into the furious torrent, along which they are carried amid feathery foam for many yards before settling to rest.
Across the Thlonok to the southwards, rose the magnificent mountain of Tukcham, but I only once caught a glimpse of its summit, which even then clouded over before I could get my instruments adjusted for ascertaining its height. Its top is a sharp cone, surrounded by rocky shoulders, that rise from a mass of snow. Its eastern slope of 8000 feet is very rapid (about 38°) from its base at the Zemu river to its summit.
Glaciers in the north-west Himalaya descend to 11,000 feet; but I could not discover any in these valleys even so low as 14,000 feet, though at this season extensive snowbeds remain unmelted at but little above 10,000 feet. The foot of the stupendous glacier filling the broad head of the Thlonok is certainly not below 14,000 feet; though being continuous with the perpetual snow (or névé) of the summit of Kinchinjunga, it must have 14,000 feet of ice, in perpendicular height, to urge it forwards.
All my attempts to advance up the Zemu were fruitlesss and a snow bridge by which I had hoped to cross to the opposite bank was carried away by the daily swelling river, while the continued bad weather prevented any excursions for days together. Botany was my only resource, and as vegetation was advancing rapidly under the influence of the southerly winds, I had a rich harvest: for though Compositæ, Pedicularis, and a few more of the finer Himalayan plants flower later, June is still the most glorious month for show.
Rhododendrons occupy the most prominent place, clothing the mountain slopes with a deep green mantle glowing with bells of brilliant colours; of the eight or ten species growing here, every bush was loaded with as great a profusion of blossoms as are their northern congeners in our English gardens. Primroses are next, both in beauty and abundance; and they are accompanied by yellow cowslips, three feet high, purple polyanthus, and pink large-flowered dwarf kinds nestling in the rocks, and an exquisitely beautiful blue miniature species, whose blossoms sparkle like sapphires on the turf. Gentians begin to unfold their deep azure bells, aconites to rear their tall blue spikes, and fritillaries and Meconopsis burst into flower. On the black rocks the gigantic rhubarb forms pale pyramidal towers a yard high, of inflated reflexed bracts, that conceal the flowers, and over-lapping one another like tiles, protect them from the wind and rain: a whorl of broad green leaves edged with red spreads on the ground at the base of the plant, contrasting in colour with the transparent bracts, which are yellow, margined with pink. This is the handsomest herbaceous plant in Sikkim: it is called “Tchuka,” and the acid stems are eaten both raw and boiled; they are hollow and full of pure water: the root resembles that of the medicinal rhubarb, but it is spongy and inert; it attains a length of four feet, and grows as thick as the arm. The dried leaves afford a substitute for tobacco; a smaller kind of rhubarb is however more commonly used in Tibet for this purpose; it is called “Chula.”
The elevation being 12,080 feet, I was above the limit of trees, and the ground was covered with many kinds of small-flowered honeysuckles, berberry, and white rose.[174]
[174] Besides these I found a prickly Aralia, maple, two currants, eight or nine rhododendrons, many Sedums, Rhodiola, white Clematis, red-flowered cherry, birch, willow, Viburnum, juniper, a few ferns, two Andromedas, Menziesia, and Spircæa. And in addition to the herbs mentioned above, may be enumerated Parnassia, many Saxifrages, Soldanella, Draba, and various other Cruciferæ, Nardostachys, (spikenard), Epilobium, Thalictrum, and very many other genera, almost all typical of the Siberian, North European, and Arctic floras.
I saw no birds, and of animals only an occasional muskdeer. Insects were scarce, and quite different from what I had seen before; chiefly consisting of Phryganea (Mayfly) and some Carabidæ (an order that is very scarce in the Himalaya); with various moths, chiefly Geometræ.
The last days of June (as is often the case) were marked by violent storms, and for two days my tent proved no protection; similar weather prevailed all over India, the barometer falling very low. I took horary observations of the barometer in the height of the storm on the 30th: the tide was very small indeed (·024 inch, between 9.50 a.m. and 4 p.m.), and the thermometer ranged between 47° and 57·8°, between 7 a.m. and midnight. Snow fell abundantly as low as 13,000 feet, and the rivers were much swollen, the size and number of the stones they rolled along producing a deafening turmoil. Only 3·7 inches of rain fell between the 23rd of June and the 2nd of July; whilst 21 inches fell at Dorjiling, and 6·7 inches at Calcutta. During the same period the mean temperature was 48°; extremes, 62°/36.5°. The humidity was nearly at saturation-point, the wind southerly, very raw and cold, and drizzling rain constantly fell. A comparison of thirty observations with Dorjiling gave a difference of 14° temperature, which is at the rate of 1° for every 347 feet of ascent.[175]
[175] Forty-seven observations, comparative with Calcutta, gave 34·8° difference, and if 5.5° of temperature be deducted for northing in latitude, the result is 1° for every 412 feet of ascent. My observations at the junction of the rivers alt. 10,850 feet), during the early part of the mouth, gave 1° to 304 feet, as the result of twenty-four observations with Dorjiling, and 1° to 394 feet, from seventy-four observations with Calcutta.
The temperature of these rivers varies extremely at different parts of their course, depending on that of their affluents. The Teesta is always cool in summer (where its bed is below 2000 feet), its temperature being 20° below that of the air; whereas in mid-winter, when there is less cloud, and the snows are not melting, it is only a few degrees colder than the air.[176] At this season, in descending from 12,000 feet to 1000 feet, its temperature does not rise 10°, though that of the air rises 30° or 40°. It is a curious fact, that the temperature of the northern feeders of the Teesta, in some parts of their course, rises with the increasing elevation! Of this the Zemu afforded a curious example: during my stay at its junction with the Thlonok it was 46°, or 6° warmer than that river; at 1,100 feet higher it was 48°, and at 1,100 feet higher still it was 49°! These observations were repeated in different weeks, and several times on the same day, both in ascending and descending, and always with the same result: they told, as certainly as if I had followed the river to its source, that it rose in a drier and comparatively sunny climate, and flowed amongst little snowed mountains.
[176] During my sojourn at Bhomsong in mid-winter of 1848 (see v. i. p. 305), the mean temperature of the Teesta was 51°, and of the air 52·3°; at that elevation the river water rarely exceeds 60° at midsummer. Between 4000 feet and 300 (the plains) its mean temperature varies about 10° between January and July; at 6000 feet it varies from 55° to 43° during the same period; and at 10,000 feet it freezes at the edges in winter and rises to 50° in July.
Meanwhile, the Lachen Phipun continued to threaten us, and I had to send back some of the more timorous of my party. On the 28th of June fifty men arrived at the Thlonok, and turned my people out of the shed at the junction of the rivers, together with the plants they were preserving, my boards, papers, and utensils. The boys came to me breathless, saying that there were Tibetan soldiers amongst them, who declared that I was in Cheen, and that they were coming on the following morning to make a clean sweep of my goods, and drive me back to Dorjiling. I had little fear for myself, but was anxious with respect to my collections: it was getting late in the day, and raining, and I had no mind to go down and expose myself to the first brunt of their insolence, which I felt sure a night of such weather would materially wash away. Meepo was too frightened, but Nimbo, my Bhotan coolie Sirdar, volunteered to go, with two stout fellows; and he accordingly brought away my plants and papers, having held a parley with the enemy, who, as I suspected, were not Tibetans. The best news he brought was, that they were half clad and without food; the worst, that they swaggered and bullied: he added, with some pride, that he gave them as good as he got, which I could readily believe, Nimbo being really a resolute fellow,[177] and accomplished in Tibet slang.
[177] In East Nepal he drew his knife on a Ghorka sepoy; and in the following winter was bold enough to make his escape in chains from Tumloong.
On the following morning it rained harder than ever, and the wind was piercingly cold. My timid Lepchas huddled behind my tent, which, from its position, was only to be stormed in front. I dismantled my little observatory, and packed up the instruments, tied my dog, Kinchin, to one of the tent-pegs, placed a line of stones opposite the door, and seated myself on my bed on the ground, with my gun beside me.
The dog gave tongue as twenty or thirty people defiled up the glen, and gathered in front of my tent; they were ragged Bhoteeas, with bare heads and legs, in scanty woollen garments sodden with rain, which streamed off their shaggy hair, and furrowed their sooty faces: their whole appearance recalled to my mind Dugald Dalgetty’s friends, the children of the mist.
They appeared nonplussed at seeing no one with me, and at my paying no attention to them, whilst the valiant Kinchin effectually scared them from the tent-door. When they requested a parley, I sent the interpreter to say that I would receive three men, and that only provided all the rest were sent down immediately; this, as I anticipated, was acceded to at once, and there remained only the Lachen Phipun and his brother. Without waiting to let him speak, I rated him soundly, saying, that I was ready to leave the spot when he could produce any proof of my being in Bhote (or Cheen), which he knew well I was not; that, since my arrival at Lachen, he had told me nothing but lies, and had contravened every order, both of the Rajah and of Tchebu Lama. I added, that I had given him and his people kindness and medicine, their return was bad, and he must go about his business at once, having, as I knew, no food, and I having none for him. He behaved very humbly throughout, and finally took himself off much discomfited, and two days afterwards sent men to offer to assist me in moving my things.
The first of July was such a day as I had long waited for to obtain a view, and I ascended the mountain west of my camp, to a point where water boiling at 185·7° (air 42°), gave an elevation of 14,914 feet. On the top of the range, about 1000 feet above this, there was no snow on the eastern exposures, except in hollows, but on the west slopes it lay in great fields twenty or thirty feet thick; while to the north, the mountains all appeared destitute of snow, with grassy flanks and rugged tops.
Drizzling mist, which had shrouded Tukcham all the morning, soon gathered on this mountain, and prevented any prospect from the highest point reached; but on the ascent I had an excellent view up the Zemu, which opened into a broad grassy valley, where I saw with the glass some wooden sheds, but no cattle or people. To reach these, however, involved crossing the river, which was now impossible; and I reluctantly made up my mind to return on the morrow to Zemu Samdong, and thence try the other river.
On my descent to the Thlonok, I found that the herbaceous plants on the terraces had grown fully two feet during the fortnight, and now presented almost a tropical luxuriance and beauty. Thence I reached Zemu Samdong in one day, and found the vegetation there even more gay and beautiful: the gigantic lily was in full flower, and scenting the air, with the lovely red rose, called “Chirring” by the Tibetans. Neillia was blossoming profusely at my old camping-ground, to which I now returned after a month’s absence.
Soon after my arrival I received letters from Dr. Campbell, who had strongly and repeatedly represented to the Rajah his opinion of the treatment I was receiving; and this finally brought an explicit answer, to the effect that his orders had been full and peremptory that I should be supplied with provisions, and safely conducted to the frontier. With these came letters on the Rajah’s part from Tchebu Lama to the Lachen Phipun, ordering him to take me to the pass, but not specifying its position; fortunately, however, Dr. Campbell sent me a route, which stated the pass to be at Kongra Lama, several marches beyond this, and in the barren country of Tibet.
On the 5th of July the Singtam Soubah arrived from Chola (the Rajah’s summer residence): he was charged to take me to the frontier, and brought letters from his highness, as well as a handsome present, consisting of Tibet cloth, and a dress of China silk brocaded with gold: the Ranee also sent me a basket of Lhassa sweetmeats, consisting of Sultana raisins from Bokhara, sliced and dried apricots from Lhassa, and Diospyros fruit from China (called “Gubroon” by the Tibetans). The Soubah wanted to hurry me on to the frontier and back at once, being no doubt instigated to do so by the Dewan’s party, and by his having no desire to spend much time in the dreary lofty regions I wanted to explore. I positively refused, however, to start until more supplies arrived, except he used his influence to provide me with food; and as he insisted that the frontier was at Tallum Samdong, only one march up the Lachen, I foresaw that this move was to be but one step forward, though in the right direction. He went forward to Tallum at once, leaving me to follow.
The Lamteng people had all migrated beyond that point to Tungu, where they were pasturing their cattle: I sent thither for food, and procured a little meal at a very high price, a few fowls and eggs; the messenger brought back word that Tungu was in Tibet, and that the villagers ignored Kongra Lama. A large piece of yak-flesh being brought for sale, I purchased it; but it proved the toughest meat I ever ate, being no doubt that of an animal that had succumbed to the arduous duties of a salt-carrier over the passes: at this season, however, when the calves are not a month old, it was in vain to expect better.
Large parties of women and children were daily passing my tent from Tungu, to collect arum-roots at the Thlonok, all with baskets at their backs, down to rosy urchins of six years old: they returned after several days, their baskets neatly lined with broad rhododendron leaves, and full of a nauseous-looking yellow acid pulp, which told forcibly of the extreme poverty of the people. The children were very fair; indeed the young Tibetan is as fair as an English brunette, before his perennial coat of smoke and dirt has permanently stained his face, and it has become bronzed and wrinkled by the scorching sun and rigorous climate of these inhospitable countries. Children and women were alike decked with roses, and all were good-humoured and pleasant, behaving with great kindness to one another, and unaffected politeness to me.
During my ten days’ stay at Zemu Samdong, I formed a large collection of insects, which was in great part destroyed by damp: many were new, beautiful, and particularly interesting, from belonging to types whose geographical distribution is analogous to that of the vegetation. The caterpillar of the swallow-tail butterfly (Papilio Machaon), was common, feeding on umbelliferous plants, as in England; and a Sphynx (like S. Euphorbiæ) was devouring the euphorbias; the English Cynthia Cardui (painted-lady butterfly) was common, as were “sulphurs,” “marbles,” Pontia (whites), “blues,” and Thecla, of British aspect but foreign species. Amongst these, tropical forms were rare, except one fine black swallow-tail. Of moths, Noctuæ and Geometræ abounded, with many flies and Tipulæ. Hymenoptera were scarce, except a yellow Ophion, which lays its eggs in the caterpillars above-mentioned. Beetles were most rare, and (what is remarkable) the wood-borers (longicorns and Curculio) particularly so. A large Telephora was very common, and had the usual propensity of its congeners for blood; lamellicorns were also abundant.
On the 11th of July five coolies arrived with rice: they had been twenty days on the road, and had been obliged to make great detours, the valley being in many places impassable. They brought me a parcel of English letters; and I started up the Lachen on the following day, with renewed spirits and high hopes. The road first crossed the Zemu and the spur beyond, and then ascended the west bank of the Lachen, a furious torrent for five or six miles, during which it descends 1000 feet, in a chasm from which rise lofty black pine-clad crags, topped by snowy mountains, 14,000 to 16,000 feet high. One remarkable mass of rock, on the east bank, is called “Sakya-zong” (or the abode of Sakya, often pronounced Thakya, one of the Boodhist Trinity); at its base a fine cascade falls into the river.
Above 11,000 feet the valley expands remarkably, the mountains recede, become less wooded, and more grassy, while the stream is suddenly less rapid, meandering in a broader bed, and bordered by marshes, covered with Carex, Blysmus, dwarf Tamarisk, and many kinds of yellow and red Pedicularis, both tall and beautiful. There are far fewer rhododendrons here than in the damper Zemu valley at equal elevations, and more Siberian, or dry country types of vegetation, as Astragali of several kinds, Habenaria, Epipactis, dandelion, and a caraway, whose stems (called in Tibet “Gzira”) are much sought for as a condiment.[178] The Singtam Soubah and Lachen Phipun received me at the bridge (Samdong), at Tallum, and led me across the river (into Cheen they affirmed) to a pretty green sward, near some gigantic gneiss boulders, where I camped, close by the river, and 11,480 feet above the sea.
[178] Umbelliferæ abound here; with sage, Ranunculus, Anemone, Aconites, Halenia, Gentians, Panax, Euphrasia, speedwell, Prunella vulgaris, thistles, bistort, Parnassia, purple orchis, Prenanthes, and Lactuca. The woody plants of this region are willows, birch, Cotoneaster, maple, three species of Viburnum, three of Spiræa, Vaccinium, Aralia, Deutzia, Philadelphus, rhododendrons, two junipers, silver fir, larch, three honeysuckles, Neillia, and a Pieris, whose white blossoms are so full of honey as to be sweet and palatable.
The village of Tallum consists of a few wretched stone huts, placed in a broad part of the valley, which is swampy, and crossed by several ancient moraines, which descend from the gulleys on the east flank.[179] The cottages are from four to six feet high, without windows, and consist of a single apartment, containing neither table, chair, stool, nor bed; the inmates huddle together amid smoke, filth, and darkness, and sleep on a plank; and their only utensils are a bamboo churn, copper, bamboo, and earthenware vessels, for milk, butter, etc.
[179] I have elsewhere noticed that in Sikkim, the ancient moraines above 9000 feet are almost invariably deposited from valleys opening to the westward.
Grassy or stony mountains slope upwards, at an angle of 20°,[180] from these flats to 15,000 feet, but no snow is visible, except on Kinchinjhow and Chomiomo, about fifteen miles up the valley. Both these are flat-topped, and dazzlingly white, rising into small peaks, and precipitous on all sides; they are grand, bold, isolated masses, quite unlike the ordinary snowy mountains in form, and far more imposing even than Kinchinjunga, though not above 22,000 feet in elevation.
[180] At Lamteng and up the Zemu the slopes are 40° and 50°, giving a widely different aspect to the valleys.
Herbaceous plants are much more numerous here than in any other part of Sikkim; and sitting at my tent-door, I could, without rising from the ground, gather forty-three plants,[181] of which all but two belonged to English genera. In the rich soil about the cottages were crops of dock, shepherd’s-purse, Thlaspi arvense, Cynoglossum of two kinds (one used as a pot-herb), balsams, nettle, Galeopsis, mustard, radish, and turnip. On the neighbouring hills, which I explored up to 15,000 feet, I found many fine plants, partaking more or less of the Siberian type, of which Corydalis, Leguminosæ, Artemisia, and Pedicularis, are familiar instances. I gathered upwards of 200 species, nearly all belonging to north European genera. Twenty-five were woody shrubs above three feet high, and six were ferns;[182] sedges were in great profusion, amongst them three of British kinds: seven or eight were Orchideæ, including a fine Cypripedium.
[181] In England thirty is, on the average, the equivalent number of plants, which in favourable localities I have gathered in an equal space. In both cases many are seedlings of short-lived annuals, and in neither is the number a test of the luxuriance of the vegetation; it but shows the power which the different species exert in their struggle to obtain a place.
[182] Cryptogramma crispa, Davallia, two Aspidia, and two Polypodia. I gathered ten at the same elevation, in the damper Zemu valley (see p. 49, note). I gathered in this valley a new species of the remarkable European genus Struthiopteris, which has not been found elsewhere in the Himalaya.
The entomology of Tallum, like its botany, was Siberian, Arctic types occurring at lower elevations than in the wetter parts of Sikkim. Of beetles the honey-feeding ones prevailed, with European forms of others that inhabit yak-droppings.[183] Bees were common, both Bombus and Andræna, but there were no wasps, and but few ants. Grasshoppers and other Orthoptera were rare, as were Hemiptera; Tipula was the common dipterous insect, with a small sand-fly: there were neither leeches, mosquitos, ticks, nor midges. Pigeons, red-legged crows, and hawks were the common birds; with a few waders in the marshes.
[183] As Aphodius and Geotrupes. Predaceous genera were very rare, as Carabus and Staphylinus, so typical of boreal regions. Coccinella (lady-bird), which swarms at Dorjiling, does not ascend so high, and a Clytus was the only longicorn. Bupretis, Elater, and Blaps were found but rarely. Of butterflies, the Machaon seldom reaches this elevation, but the painted-lady, Pontia, Colias, Hipparchia, Argynnis, and Polyommatus, are all found.
Being now fairly behind most of the great snow and rain-collecting mountains, I experienced a considerable change in the climate, which characterises all these rearward lofty valleys, where very little rain falls, and that chiefly drizzle; but this is so constant that the weather feels chilly, raw, and comfortless, and I never returned dry from botanising. The early mornings were bright with views northwards of blue sky and Kinchinjhow, while to the south the lofty peak of Tukcham, though much nearer, was seldom seen, and black cumuli and nimbi rolled up the steep valley of the Lachen to be dissipated in mist over Tallum. The sun’s rays were, however, powerful at intervals during the forenoon, whence the mean maximum temperature of July occurred at about 10 a.m. The temperature of the river was always high, varying with the heat of the day from 47° to 52°; the mean being 50°.
These streams do not partake of the diurnal rise and fall, so characteristic of the Swiss rivers and those of the western Himalaya, where a powerful sun melts the glaciers by day, and their head-streams are frozen by night. Here the clouds alike prevent solar and nocturnal radiation, the temperature is more uniform, and the corroding power of the damp southerly wind that blows strongly throughout the day is the great melting agent. One morning I saw a vivid and very beautiful halo 20° distant from the sun’s disc; it was no doubt caused by snow in the higher regions of the atmosphere, as a sharp shower of rain fell immediately afterwards: these are rare phenomena in mountainous countries.
The Singtam Soubah visited me daily, and we enjoyed long friendly conversations: he still insisted that the Yangchoo (the name he gave to the Lachen at this place) was the boundary, and that I must not go any further. His first question was always “How long do you intend to remain here? have you not got all the plants and stones you want? you can see the sun much better with those brasses and glasses[184] lower down; it is very cold here, and there is no food:”—to all which I had but one reply, that I should not return till I had visited Kongra Lama. He was a portly man, and, I think, at heart good-natured: I had no difficulty in drawing him on to talk about Tibet, and the holy city of Teshoo Loombo, with its thousands of gilt temples, nunneries, and convents, its holiest of all the holy grand Lamas of Tibet, and all the wide Boodhist world besides. Had it even been politic, I felt it would be unfair to be angry with a man who was evidently in a false position between myself and his two rulers, the Rajah and Dewan; who had a wife and family on the smiling flanks of Singtam, and who longed to be soaking in the warm rain of Sikkim, drinking Murwa beer (a luxury unknown amongst these Tibetans) and gathering in his crops of rice, millet, and buckwheat. Though I may owe him a grudge for his subsequent violence, I still recall with pleasure the hours we spent together on the banks of the Lachen. In all matters respecting the frontier, his lies were circumstantial; and he further took the trouble of bringing country people to swear that this was Cheen, and that there was no such place as Kongra Lama. I had written to ask Dr. Campbell for a definite letter from Tchebu Lama on this point, but unfortunately my despatches were lost; the messenger who conveyed them missed his footing in crossing the Lachen, and escaped narrowly with life, while the turban in which the letters were placed was carried down the current.
[184] Alluding to the sextant, etc.
Finally the Soubah tried to persuade my people that one so incorrigibly obstinate must be mad, and that they had better leave me. One day, after we had had a long discussion about the geography of the frontier, he inflamed my curiosity by telling me that Kinchinjhow was a very holy mountain; more so than its sister-peaks of Chumulari and Kinchinjunga; and that both the Sikkim and Tibetan Lamas, and Chinese soldiers, were ready to oppose my approach to it. This led to my asking him for a sketch of the mountains; he called for a large sheet of paper, and some charcoal, and wanted to form his mountains of sand; I however ordered rice to be brought, and though we had but little, scattered it about wastefully. This had its effect: he stared at my wealth, for he had all along calculated on starving me out, and retired, looking perplexed and crestfallen. Nothing puzzled him so much as my being always occupied with such, to him, unintelligible pursuits; a Tibetan “cui bono?” was always in his mouth: “What good will it do you?” “Why should you spend weeks on the coldest, hungriest, windiest, loftiest place on the earth, without even inhabitants?” Drugs and idle curiosity he believed were my motives, and possibly a reverence for the religion of Boodh, Sakya, and Tsongkaba. Latterly he had made up his mind to starve me out, and was dismayed when he found I could hold out better than himself, and when I assured him that I should not retrace my steps until his statements should be verified by a letter from Tchebu; that I had written to him, and that it would be at least thirty days before I could receive an answer.
On the 19th of July he proposed to take me to Tungu, at the foot of Kinchinjhow, and back, upon ponies, provided I would leave my people and tent, which I refused to do. After this I saw little of him for several days, and began to fear he was offended, when one morning his attendant came to me for medicine with a dismal countenance, and in great alarm: he twisted his fingers together over his stomach to symbolise the nature of the malady which produced a commotion in his master’s bowels, and which was simply the colic. I was aware that he had been reduced to feed upon “Tong” (the arum-root) and herbs, and had always given him half the pigeons I shot, which was almost the only animal food I had myself. Now I sent him a powerful dose of medicine; adding a few spoonfuls of China tea and sugar for friendship.
On the 22nd, being convalescent, he visited me, looking wofully yellow. After a long pause, during which he tried to ease himself of some weighty matter, he offered to take me to Tungu with my tent and people, and, thence to Kongra Lama, if I would promise to stay but two nights. I asked whether Tungu was in Cheen or Sikkim; he replied that after great enquiry he had heard that it was really in Sikkim; “Then,” said I, “we will both go to-morrow morning to Tungu, and I will stay there as long as I please:” he laughed, and gave in with apparent good grace.
After leaving Tallum, the valley contracts, passing over great ancient moraines, and again expanding wider than before into broad grassy flats. The vegetation rapidly diminishes in stature and abundance, and though the ascent to Tungu is trifling, the change in species is very great. The Spiræa, maple, Pieris, cherry, and larch disappear, leaving only willow, juniper, stunted birch, silver fir, white rose, Aralia, berberry, currant, and more rhododendrons than all these put together;[185] while mushrooms and other English fungi[186] grew amongst the grass.
[185] Cyananthus, a little blue flower allied to Campanula, and one of the most beautiful alpines I know, covered the turfy ground, with Orchis, Pedicularis, Gentian, Potentilla, Geranium, purple and yellow Meconopsis, and the Artemisia of Dorjiling, which ascends to 12,000 feet, and descends to the plains, having a range of 11,500 feet in elevation. Of ferns, Hymenophyllum, Cistopteris, and Cryptogramma crispa ascend thus high.
[186] One of great size, growing in large clumps, is the English Agaricus comans, Fr., and I found it here at 12,500 feet, as also the beautiful genus Crucibulum, which is familiar to us in England, growing on rotten sticks, and resembling a diminutive bird’s nest with eggs in it.
Tungu occupies a very broad valley, at the junction of the Tungu-choo from the east, and the Lachen from the north. The hills slope gently upwards to 16,000 feet, at an average angle of 15°; they are flat and grassy at the base, and no snow is anywhere to be seen.[187] A stupendous rock, about fifty feet high, lay in the middle of the valley, broken in two: it may have been detached from a cliff, or have been transported thither as part of an ancient moraine which extends from the mouth of the Tungu-choo valley across that of the Lachen. The appearance and position of this great block, and of the smaller piece lying beside it, rather suggest the idea of the whole mass having fallen perpendicularly from a great height through a crevasse in a glacier, than of its having been hurled from so considerable a distance as from the cliffs on the flanks of the valley: it is faithfully represented in the accompanying woodcut. A few wooden houses were collected near this rock, and several black tents were scattered about. I encamped at an elevation of 12,750 feet, and was waited on by the Lachen Phipun with presents of milk, butter, yak-flesh, and curds; and we were not long before we drowned old enmity in buttered and salted tea.
[187] In the wood-cut the summit of Chomiomo is introduced, as it appears from a few hundred feet above the point of view.
On my arrival I found the villagers in a meadow, all squatted cross-legged in a circle, smoking their brass and iron pipes, drinking tea, and listening to a letter from the Rajah, concerning their treatment of me. Whilst my men were pitching my tent, I gathered forty plants new to me, all of Tartarian types.[188] Wheat or barley I was assured had been cultivated at Tungu when it was possessed by Tibetans, and inhabited by a frontier guard, but I saw no appearance of any cultivation. The fact is an important one, as barley requires a mean summer temperature of 48° to come to maturity. According to my observations, the mean temperature of Tungu in July is upwards of 50°, and, by calculation, that of the three summer months, June, July, and August, should be about 46·5°. As, however, I do not know whether these cerealia were grown as productive crops, much stress cannot be laid upon the fact of their having been cultivated, for in a great many parts of Tibet the barley is annually cut green for fodder.
[188] More Siberian plants appeared, as Astragali, Chenopodium, Artemisia, some grasses, new kinds of Pedicularis, Delphinium, and some small Orchids. Three species of Parnassia and six primroses made the turf gay, mixed with saxifrages, Androsace and Campanula. By the cottages was abundance of shepherd’s-purse, Lepidium, and balsams, with dock, Galeopsis, and Cuscuta. Several low dwarf species of honeysuckle formed stunted bushes like heather; and Anisodus, a curious plant allied to Hyoscyamus, whose leaves are greedily eaten by yaks, was very common.
In the evening the sick came to me: their complaints, as usual, being rheumatism, ophthalmia, goitres, cuts, bruises, and poisoning by Tong (Arum), fungi, and other deleterious vegetables. At Tallum I attended an old woman who dressed her ulcers with Plantago (plantain) leaves, a very common Scotch remedy; the ribs being drawn out from the leaf, which is applied fresh: it is rather a strong application.
On the following morning I was awakened by the shrill cries of the Tibetan maidens, calling the yaks to be milked, “Toosh—toosh—toooosh,” in a gradually higher key; to which Toosh seemed supremely indifferent, till quickened in her movements by a stone or stick, levelled with unerring aim at her ribs; these animals were changing their long winter’s wool for sleek hair, and the former hung about them in ragged masses, like tow. Their calves gambolled by their sides, the drollest of animals, like ass-colts in their antics, kicking up their short hind-legs, whisking their bushy tails in the air, rushing up and down the grassy slopes, and climbing like cats to the top of the rocks.
The Soubah and Phipun came early to take me to Kongra Lama, bringing ponies, genuine Tartars in bone and breed. Remembering the Dewan’s impracticable saddle at Bhomsong, I stipulated for a horse-cloth or pad, upon which I had no sooner jumped than the beast threw back his ears, seated himself on his haunches, and, to consternation, slid backwards down a turfy slope, pawing the earth with his fore-feet as he went, and leaving me on the ground, amid shrieks of laughter from my Lepchas. My steed being caught, I again mounted, and was being led forward, when he took to shaking himself like a dog till the pad slipped under his belly, and I was again unhorsed. Other ponies displayed equal prejudices against my mode of riding, or having my weight anywhere but well on their shoulders, being all-powerful in their fore-quarters; and so I was compelled to adopt the high demi-pique saddle with short stirrups, which forced me to sit with my knees up to my nose, and to grip with the calves of my legs and heels. All the gear was of yak or horse-hair, and the bit was a curb and ring, or a powerful twisted snaffle.
The path ran N.N.W. for two miles, and then crossed the Lachen above its junction with the Nunee[189] from the west: the stream was rapid, and twelve yards in breadth; its temperature was 48°. About six miles above Tungu, the Lachen is joined by the Chomio-choo, a large affluent from Chomiomo mountain. Above this the Lachen meanders along a broad stony bed; and the path rises over a great ancient moraine, whose level top is covered with pools, but both that and its south face are bare, from exposure to the south wind, which blows with fury through this contracted part of the valley to the rarified atmosphere of the lofty, open, and dry country beyond. Its north slope, on the contrary, is covered with small trees and brushwood, rhododendron, birch, honeysuckle, and mountain-ash. These are the most northern shrubs in Sikkim, and I regarded them with deep interest, as being possibly the last of their kind to be met with in this meridian, for many degrees further north: perhaps even no similar shrubs occur between this and the Siberian Altai, a distance of 1,500 miles. The magnificent yellow cowslip (Primula Sikkimensis) gilded the marshes, and Caltha,[190] Trollius, Anemone, Arenaria, Draba, Saxifrages, Potentillas, Ranunculus, and other very alpine plants abounded.
[189] I suspect there is a pass by the Nunee to the sheds I saw up the Zemu valley on the 2nd of July, as I observed yaks grazing high up the mountains: the distance cannot be great, and there is little or no snow to interfere.
[190] This is the C. scaposa, n. sp. The common Caltha palustris, or “marsh marigold” of England, which is not found in Sikkim, is very abundant in the north-west Himalaya.
At the foot of the moraine was a Tibetan camp of broad, black, yak-hair tents, stretched out with a complicated system of ropes, and looking at a distance—(to borrow M. Huc’s graphic simile)—like fat-bodied, long-legged spiders! Their general shape is hexagonal, about twelve feet either way, and they are stretched over six short posts, and encircled with a low stone wall, except in front. In one of them I found a buxom girl, the image of good humour, making butter and curd from yak-milk. The churns were of two kinds; one being an oblong box of birch-bark, or close bamboo wicker-work, full of branched rhododendron twigs, in which the cream is shaken: she good-naturedly showed me the inside, which was frosted with snow-white butter, and alive with maggots. The other churn was a goat-skin, which was rolled about, and shaken by the four legs. The butter is made into great squares, and packed in yak-hair cloths; the curd is eaten either fresh, or dried and pulverised (when it is called “Ts’cheuzip”).
Except bamboo and copper milk-vessels, wooden ladles, tea-churn, and pots, these tents contained no furniture but goat-skins and blankets, to spread on the ground as a bed. The fire was made of sheep and goats’-droppings, lighted with juniper-wood; above it hung tufts of yaks’-hair, one for every animal lost during the season,[191] by which means a reckoning is kept. Although this girl had never before seen a European, she seemed in no way discomposed at my visit, and gave me a large slice of fresh curd.
[191] The Siberians hang tufts of horse-hair inside their houses from superstitious motives (Ermann’s “Siberia,” i., 281).
Beyond this place (alt. 14,500 feet), the valley runs up north-east, becoming very stony and desolate, with green patches only by the watercourses: at this place, however, thick fogs came on, and obscured all view. At 15,000 feet, I passed a small glacier on the west side of the valley, the first I had met with that descended nearly to the river, during the whole course of the Teesta.
Five miles further on we arrived at the tents of the Phipun, whose wife was prepared to entertain us with Tartar hospitality: magnificent tawny Tibet mastiffs were baying at the tent-door, and some yaks and ponies were grazing close by. We mustered twelve in number, and squatted cross-legged in a circle inside the tent, the Soubah and myself being placed on a pretty Chinese rug. Salted and buttered tea was immediately prepared in a tea-pot for us on the mat, and in a great caldron for the rest of the party; parched rice and wheat-flour, curd, and roasted maize[192] were offered us, and we each produced our wooden cup, which was kept constantly full of scalding tea-soup, which, being made with fresh butter, was very good. The flour was the favourite food, of which each person dexterously formed little dough-balls in his cup, an operation I could not well manage, and only succeeded in making a nauseous paste, that stuck to my jaws and in my throat. Our hostess’ hospitality was too exigeant for me, but the others seemed as if they could not drink enough of the scalding tea.
[192] Called “pop-corn” in America, and prepared by roasting the maize in an iron vessel, when it splits and turns partly inside out, exposing a snow-white spongy mass of farina. It looks very handsome, and would make a beautiful dish for dessert.
We were suddenly startled from our repast by a noise like loud thunder, crash following crash, and echoing through the valley. The Phipun got up, and coolly said, “The rocks are falling, it is time we were off, it will rain soon.” The moist vapours had by this time so accumulated, as to be condensed in rain on the cliffs of Chomiomo and Kinchinjhow; which, being loosened, precipitated avalanches of rocks and snow. We proceeded amidst dense fog, soon followed by hard rain; the roar of falling rocks on either hand increasing as these invisible giants spoke to one another in voices of thunder through the clouds. The effect was indescribably grand: and as the weather cleared, and I obtained transient peeps of their precipices of blue ice and black rock towering 5000 feet above me on either hand, the feeling of awe produced was almost overpowering. Heavy banks of vapour still veiled the mountains, but the rising mist exposed a broad stony track, along which the Lachen wandered, split into innumerable channels, and enclosing little oases of green vegetation, lighted up by occasional gleams of sunshine. Though all around was enveloped in gloom, there was in front a high blue arc of cloudless sky, between the beetling cliffs that formed the stern portals of the Kongra Lama pass.