Himalayan Journals Part 28

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 a.s.sured 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 friends.h.i.+p.

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, pa.s.sing over great ancient moraines, and again expanding wider than before into broad gra.s.sy 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 _Spiraea,_ 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;* [_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.] while mushrooms and other English fungi* [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.]

grew amongst the gra.s.s.

Ill.u.s.tration--TUNGU VILLAGE.

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 degrees; they are flat and gra.s.sy at the base, and no snow is anywhere to be seen.* [In the wood-cut the summit of Chomiomo is introduced, as it appears from a few hundred feet above the point of view.] 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 ma.s.s having fallen perpendicularly from a great height through a _creva.s.se_ 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, b.u.t.ter, yak-flesh, and curds; and we were not long before we drowned old enmity in b.u.t.tered and salted tea.

On my arrival I found the villagers in a meadow, all squatted cross-legged in a circle, smoking their bra.s.s 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.* [More Siberian plants appeared, as _Astragali, Chenopodium, Artemisia,_ some gra.s.ses, new kinds of _Pedicularis, Delphinium,_ and some small Orchids. Three species of _Parna.s.sia_ 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.] Wheat or barley I was a.s.sured 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 degrees to come to maturity. According to my observations, the mean temperature of Tungu in July is upwards of 50 degrees, and, by calculation, that of the three summer months, June, July, and August, should be about 46.5 degrees. 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.

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 ma.s.ses, like tow. Their calves gambolled by their sides, the drollest of animals, like a.s.s-colts in their antics, kicking up their short hind-legs, whisking their bushy tails in the air, rus.h.i.+ng up and down the gra.s.sy 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 my 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* [I suspect there is a pa.s.s 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.] from the west: the stream was rapid, and twelve yards in breadth; its temperature was 48 degrees. 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,_* [This is the _C. scaposa,_ n. sp. The common _Caltha pal.u.s.tris,_ or "marsh marigold" of England, which is not found in Sikkim, is very abundant in the north-west Himalaya.] _Trollius,_ Anemone, _Arenaria, Draba,_ Saxifrages, Potentillas, Ranunculus, and other very alpine plants abounded.

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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, and alive with maggots. The other churn was a goat-skin, which was rolled about, and shaken by the four legs.

The b.u.t.ter 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,* [The Siberians hang tufts of horse-hair inside their houses from superst.i.tious motives (Ermann's "Siberia," i., 281).] 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.

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 pa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.tered 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* [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 ma.s.s of farina. It looks very handsome, and would make a beautiful dish for dessert.] were offered us, and we each produced our wooden cup, which was kept constantly full of scalding tea-soup, which, being made with fresh b.u.t.ter, was very good. The flour was the favourite food, of which each person dexterously formed little dough-b.a.l.l.s 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.

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 acc.u.mulated, 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 suns.h.i.+ne. 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 pa.s.s.

CHAPTER XXI.

Top of Kongra Lama--Tibet frontier--Elevation--View-- Vegetation--Descent to Tungu--Tungu-choo--Ponies--Kinchinjhow and Changokhang mountains--Palung plains--Tibetans--Dogs-- Dingcbam province of Tibet--Inhabitants--Dresses--Women's ornaments--Blackening faces--Coral--Tents--Elevation of Palung--Lama--Shawl-wool goats--Shearing--Siberian plants-- Height of glaciers, and perpetual snow--Geology--Plants, and wild animals--Marmots--Insects--Birds--Choongtam Lama--Religious exercises--Tibetan hospitality--_Delphinium_--Perpetual snow-- Temperature at Tungu--Return to Tallum Samdong--To Lamteng-- Houses--Fall of Barometer--Cicadas--Lime deposit--Landslips --Arrival at Choongtam--Cobra--Rageu--Heat of Climate-- Velocity and volume of rivers measured--Leave for Lachoong valley --Keadom--General features of valley--Lachoong village--Tunkra mountain--Moraines--Cultivation--Lachoong Phipun--Lama ceremonies beside a sick-bed.

We reached the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet early in the afternoon; it is drawn along Kongra Lama, which is a low flat spur running east from Kinchinjhow towards Chomiomo, at a point where these mountains are a few miles apart, thus crossing the Lachen river:* [The upper valley of the Lachen in Tibet, which I ascended in the following October, is very open, flat, barren, and stony; it is bounded on the north by rounded spurs from Chomiomo, which are continued east to Donkia, forming a watershed to the Lachen on the south, and to the Arun on the north.] it is marked by cairns of stone, some rudely fas.h.i.+oned into chaits, covered with votive rags on wands of bamboo. I made the alt.i.tude by barometer 15,745 feet above the sea, and by boiling water, 15,694 feet, the water boiling at 184.1 degrees; the temperature of the air between 2.40 and 4 p.m.

varied from 41.3 degrees to 42.5 degrees, the dew-point 39.8 degrees; that of the Lachen was 47 degrees, which was remarkably high. We were bitterly cold; as the previous rain had wetted us through, and a keen wind was blowing up the valley. The continued mist and fog intercepted all view, except of the flanks of the great mountains on either hand, of the rugged snowy ones to the south, and of those bounding the Lachen to the north. The latter were unsnowed, and appeared lower than Kongra Lama, the ground apparently sloping away in that direction; but when I ascended them, three months afterwards, I found they were 3000 feet higher! a proof how utterly fallacious are estimates of height, when formed by the eye alone. My informants called them Peuka-t'hlo; "peu" signifies north in Tibetan, and "t'hlo" a hill in Lepcha.

Isolated patches of vegetation appeared on the top of the pa.s.s, where I gathered forty kinds of plants, most of them being of a tufted habit characteristic of an extreme climate; some (as species of _Caryophylleae_) forming hemi-spherical b.a.l.l.s on the naked soil; others* [The other plants found on the pa.s.s were; of smooth hairless ones, _Ranunculus,_ Fumitory, several species of _Stellaria, Arenaria, Cruciferae, Parna.s.sia, Morina,_ saxifrages, _Sedum,_ primrose, _Herminium, Polygonum, Campanula, Umbelliferae,_ gra.s.ses and _Carices_: of woolly or hairy once, _Anemone, Artemisia, Myosotis, Draba, Potentilla,_ and several _Compositae,_ etc.] growing in matted tufts level with the ground. The greater portion had no woolly covering; nor did I find any of the cottony species of _Saussurea,_ which are so common on the wetter mountains to the southward. Some most delicate-flowered plants even defy the biting winds of these exposed regions; such are a p.r.i.c.kly _Meconopsis_ with slender flower-stalks and four large blue poppy-like petals, a _Cyananthus_ with a membranous bell-shaped corolla, and a fritillary.

Other curious plants were a little yellow saxifrage with long runners (very like the arctic _S. flagellaris,_ of Spitzbergen and Melville Island), and the strong-scented spikenard (_Nardostachys_).

The rocks were chiefly of reddish quartz, and so was the base of Chomiomo. Kinchinjhow on the contrary was of gneiss, with granite veins: the strike of both was north-west, and the dip north-east 20 degrees to 30 degrees.

We made a fire at the top with sheep's droppings, of which the Phipun had brought up a bagfull, and with it a pair of goat-skin bellows, which worked by a slit that was opened by the hand in the act of raising; when inflated, the hole was closed, and the skin pressed down, thus forcing the air through the bamboo nozzle: this is the common form of bellows throughout Tibet and the Himalaya.

After two hours I was very stiff and cold, and suffering from headache and giddiness, owing to the elevation; and having walked about thirteen miles botanizing, I was glad to ride down. We reached the Phipun's tents about 6 p.m., and had more tea before proceeding to Tungu. The night was fortunately fine and calm, with a few stars and a bright young moon, which, with the glare from the snows, lighted up the valley, and revealed magnificent glimpses of the majestic mountains. As the moon sank, and we descended the narrowing valley, darkness came on, and with a boy to lead my sure-footed pony, I was at liberty uninterruptedly to reflect on the events of a day, on which I had attained the object of so many years' ambition.

Now that all obstacles were surmounted, and I was returning laden with materials for extending the knowledge of a science which had formed the pursuit of my life, will it be wondered at that I felt proud, not less for my own sake, than for that of the many friends, both in India and at home, who were interested in my success?

We arrived at Tungu at 9 p.m., my pony not having stumbled once, though the path was rugged, and crossed by many rapid streams.

The Soubah's little s.h.a.ggy steed had carried his portly frame (fully fifteen stone weight) the whole way out and back, and when he dismounted, it shook itself, snorted, and seemed quite ready for supper.

On the following morning I was occupied in noting and arranging my collections, which consisted of upwards of 200 plants; all gathered above 14,000 feet elevation.* [Amongst them the most numerous Natural orders and genera were, _Cruciferae_ 10; _Compositae_ 20; _Ranunculaceae_ 10; _Alsineae_ 9; _Astragali_ 10; _Potentillae_ 8; gra.s.ses 12; _Carices_ 15; _Pedicularis_ 7; _Boragineae_ 7.] Letters arrived from Dorjiling with unusual speed, having been only seventeen days on the road: they were full of valuable suggestions and encouragement from my friends Hodgson, Campbell, and Tchebu Lama.

On the 26th of July the Phipun, who waited on me every morning with milk and b.u.t.ter, and whose civility and attentions were now unremitting, proposed that I should accompany him to an encampment of Tibetans, at the foot of Kinchinjhow. We mounted ponies, and ascended the Tunguchoo eastwards: it was a rapid river for the first thousand feet, flowing in a narrow gorge, between sloping, gra.s.sy, and rocky hills, on which large herds of yaks were feeding, tended by women and children, whose black tents were scattered about. The yak-calves left their mothers to run beside our ponies, which became unmanageable, being almost callous to the bit; and the whole party was sometimes careering over the slopes, chased by the grunting herds: in other places, the path was narrow and dangerous, when the sagacious animals proceeded with the utmost gravity and caution. Rounding one rocky spur, my pony stumbled, and pitched me forward: fortunately I lighted on the path.

The rocks were gneiss, with granite veins (strike north-east, dip south-east): they were covered with _Ephedra,_* [A curious genus of small shrubs allied to pines, that grows in the south of Europe.

This species is the European _E. vulgaris_; it inhabits the driest parts of north-west India, and ascends to 17,000 feet in Tibet, but is not found in the moist intervening countries.] an _Onosma_ which yields a purple dye, _Orchis,_ and species of _Androsace_; while the slopes were clothed with the spikenard and purple _Pedicularis,_ and the moist grounds with yellow cowslip and long gra.s.s. A sudden bend in the valley opened a superb view to the north, of the full front of Kinchinjhow, extending for four or five miles east and west; its perpendicular sides studded with the immense icicles, which are said to have obtained for it the name of "jhow,"--the "bearded" Kinchin.

Eastward a jagged spur stretches south, rising into another splendid mountain, called Chango-khang (the Eagle's crag), from whose flanks descend great glaciers, the sources of the Tunguchoo.

We followed the course of an affluent, called the Chachoo, along whose bed ancient moraines rose in successive ridges: on these I found several other species of European genera.* [_Delphinium, Hypecoum, Sagina, Gymnandra, Artemisia, Caltha, Dracocephalum, Leontopodium._] Over one of these moraines, 500 feet high, the path ascends to the plains of Palung, an elevated gra.s.sy expanse, two miles long and four broad, extending southward from the base of Kinchinjhow. Its surface, though very level for so mountainous a country, is yet varied with open valleys and sloping hills, 500 to 700 feet high: it is bounded on the west by low rounded spurs from Kinchinjhow, that form the flank of the Lachen valley; while on the east it is separated from Chango-khang by the Chachoo, which cuts a deep east and west trench along the base of Kinchinjhow, and then turns south to the Tunguchoo. The course of the Chachoo, where it turns south, is most curious: it meanders in sickle-shaped curves along the marshy bottom of an old lake-bed, with steep shelving sides, 500 to 600 feet deep, and covered with juniper bushes.*

[These, which grow on an eastern exposure, exist at a higher elevation than any other bushes I have met with.] It is fed by the glaciers of Kinchinjhow, and some little lakes to the east.

The mean height of Palung plains is 16,000 feet: they are covered with transported blocks, and I have no doubt their surface has been much modified by glacial action. I was forcibly reminded of them by the slopes of the Wengern Alp, but those of Palung are far more level. Kinchinjhow rises before the spectator, just as the Jungfrau, Monch, and Eigher Alps do from that magnificent point of view.

On ascending a low hill, we came in sight of the Tibet camp at the distance of a mile, when the great mastiffs that guarded it immediately bayed; and our ponies starting off at full gallop, we soon reached an enclosure of stone d.y.k.es, within which the black tents were pitched. The dogs were of immense size, and ragged, like the yaks, from their winter coat hanging to their flanks in great ma.s.ses; each was chained near a large stone, on and off which he leapt as he gave tongue; they are very savage, but great cowards, and not remarkable for intelligence.

Ill.u.s.tration--LEPCHA GIRLS (THE OUTER FIGURES), AND TIBETAN WOMEN.

The people were natives of Gearee and Kambajong, in the adjacent province of Dingcham, which is the loftiest, coldest, most windy and arid in Eastern Tibet; and in which are the sources of all the streams that flow to Nepal; Sikkim, and Bhotan on the one side, and into the Yaru-tsampu on the other. These families repair yearly to Palung, with their flocks, herds, and tents, paying tribute to the Sikkim Rajah for the privilege: they arrive in June and leave in September. Both men and women were indescribably filthy; as they never wash, their faces were perfectly black with smoke and exposure, and the women's with a pigment of grease as a protection from the wind. The men were dressed as usual, in the blanket-cloak, with bra.s.s pipes, long knives, flint, steel, and amulets; the women wore similar, but shorter cloaks, with silver and copper girdles, trowsers, and flannel boots. Their head-dresses were very remarkable.

A circular band of plaited yak's hair was attached to the back hair, and encircled the head like a saint's glory,* [I find in Ermann's "Siberia" (i., p. 210), that the married women of Yekaterinberg wear a head-dress like an ancient glory covered with jewels, whilst the unmarried ones plait their tresses. The same distinguished traveller mentions having seen a lad of six years old suckled, amongst the Tungooze of East Siberia.] at some distance round it. A band crossed the forehead, from which coins, corals, and turquoises, hung down to the eyebrows, while lappets of these ornaments fell over the ears.

Their own hair was plaited in two tails, brought over the shoulders, and fastened together in front; and a little yellow felt cap, traversely elongated, so as not to interfere with the shape of the glory, was perched on the head. Their countenances were pleasing, and their manners timid.

The children crawled half-naked about the tent, or burrowed like moles in an immense heap of goats' and sheep-droppings, piled up for fuel, upon which the family lounged. An infant in arms was playing with a "coral," ornamented much like ours, and was covered with jewels and coins. This custom of decorating children is very common amongst half-civilised people; and the coral is, perhaps, one of the last relics of a barbarous age that is retained amongst ourselves.

One mother was nursing her baby, and churning at the same time, by rolling the goat-skin of yak-milk about on the ground. Extreme poverty induces the practice of nursing the children for years; and in one tent I saw a lad upwards of four years of age unconcernedly taking food from his aunt, and immediately afterwards chewing hard dry grains of maize.

The tents were pitched in holes about two feet and a half deep; and within them a wall of similar height was built all round: in the middle was a long clay arched fire-place, with holes above, over which the cauldrons were placed, the fire being underneath. Saddles, horse-cloths, and the usual accoutrements and implements of a nomad people, all of the rudest description, hung about: there was no bed or stool, but Chinese rugs for sleeping on. I boiled water on the fire-place; its temperature (184.5 degrees) with that of the air (45.5 degrees) gave an elevation of 15,867 feet. Barometric observations, taken in October, at a point considerably lower down the stream, made the elevation 15,620 feet, or a few feet lower than Kongra Lama pa.s.s.

A Lama accompanied this colony of Tibetans, a festival in honour of Kinchinjhow being annually held at a large chait hard by, which is painted red, ornamented with banners, and surmounted by an enormous yak's skull, that faces the mountain. The Lama invited me into his tent, where I found a wife and family. An extempore altar was at one end, covered with wafers and other pretty ornaments, made of b.u.t.ter, stamped or moulded with the fingers.* [The extensive use of these ornaments throughout Tibet, on the occasion of religious festivals, is alluded to by MM. Huc and Gabet.] The tents being insupportably noisome, I preferred partaking of the b.u.t.tered brick-tea in the open air; after which, I went to see the shawl-wool goats sheared in a pen close by. There are two varieties: one is a large animal, with great horns, called "Rappoo;"* [This is the "Changra;" and the smaller the "Chyapu" of Mr. Hodgson's catalogue. (See "British Museum Catalogue.")] the other smaller, and with slender horns, is called "Tsilloo." The latter yields the finest wool, but they are mixed for ordinary purposes. I was a.s.sured that the sheep (of which large flocks were grazing near) afford the finest wool of any. The animals were caught by the tail, their legs tied, the long winter's hair pulled out, and the remainder cut away with a broad flat knife, which was sharpened with a scythe-stone. The operation was clumsily performed, and the skin much cut.

Turnips are grown at Palung during the short stay of the people, and this is the most alpine cultivation in Sikkim: the seed is sown early in July, and the tubers are fit to be eaten in October, if the season is favourable. They did not come to maturity this year, as I found on again visiting this spot in October; but their tops had afforded the poor Tibetans some good vegetables. The mean temperature of the three summer months at Palung is probably about 40 degrees, an element of comparatively little importance in regulating the growth and ripening of vegetables at great elevations in Tibetan climates; where a warm exposure, the amount of suns.h.i.+ne, and of radiated heat, have a much greater influence.

During the winter, when these families repair to Kambajong, in Tibet, the flocks and herds are all stall-fed, with long gra.s.s, cut on the marshy banks of the Yaru. Snow is said to fall five feet deep at that place, chiefly after January; and it melts in April.

After tea, I ascended the hills overhanging the Lachen valley, which are very bare and stony; large flocks of sheep were feeding on them, chiefly upon small tufted sedges, allied to the English _Carex pilularis,_ which here forms the greatest part of the pasture: the gra.s.s grows mixed with it in small tufts, and is the common Scotch mountain pasture-gra.s.s (_Festuca ovina_).

On the top of these hills, which, for barrenness, reminded me of the descriptions given of the Siberian steppes, I found, at 17,000 feet elevation, several minute arctic plants, with _Rhododendron nivale,_ the most alpine of woody plants. On their sterile slopes grew a curious plant allied to the _Cherleria_ of the Scotch Alps, forming great hemispherical b.a.l.l.s on the ground, eight to ten inches across, altogether resembling in habit the curious Balsambog (_Bolax glebaria_) of the Falkland Islands, which grows in very similar scenes.* [_Arenaria rupifraga,_ Fenzl. This plant is mentioned by Dr.