Their fires gleamed everywhere amongst the trees, and the people, broken up into groups of five, presented an interesting picture of native, savage, and half-civilised life. I wandered amongst them in the darkness, and watched unseen their operations; some were cooking, with their rude bronzed faces lighted up by the ruddy glow, as they peered into the pot, stirring the boiling rice with one hand, while with the other they held back their long tangled hair. Others were bringing water from the spring below, some gathering sprigs of fragrant _Artemisia_ and other shrubs to form couches--some lopping branches of larger trees to screen them from nocturnal radiation; their only protection from the dew being such branches stuck in the ground, and slanting over their proc.u.mbent forms. The Bhotanese were rude and boisterous in their pursuits, constantly complaining to the Sirdars, and wrangling over their meals. The Ghorkas were sprightly, combing their raven hair, telling interminably long stories, of which money was the burthen, or singing Hindoo songs through their noses in chorus; and being neater and better dressed, and having a servant to cook their food, they seemed quite the gentlemen of the party.
Still the Lepcha was the most attractive, the least restrained, and the most natural in all his actions, the simplest in his wants and appliances, with a bamboo as his water-jug, an earthen-pot as his kettle, and all manner of herbs collected during the day"s march to flavour his food.
My tent was made of a blanket thrown over the limb of a tree; to this others were attached, and the whole was supported on a frame like a house. One half was occupied by my bedstead, beneath which was stowed my box of clothes, while my books and writing materials were placed under the table. The barometer hung in the most out-of-the-way corner, and my other instruments all around. A small candle was burning in a gla.s.s shade, to keep the draught and insects from the light, and I had the comfort of seeing the knife, fork, and spoon laid on a white napkin, as I entered my snug little house, and flung myself on the elastic couch to ruminate on the proceedings of the day, and speculate on those of the morrow, while waiting for my meal, which usually consisted of stewed meat and rice, with biscuits and tea. My thermometers (wet and dry bulb, and minimum) hung under a temporary canopy made of thickly plaited bamboo and leaves close to the tent, and the cooking was performed by my servant under a tree.
After dinner my occupations were to ticket and put away the plants collected during the day, write up journals, plot maps, and take observations till 10 p.m. As soon as I was in bed, one of the Nepal soldiers was accustomed to enter, spread his blanket on the ground, and sleep there as my guard. In the morning the collectors were set to change the plant-papers, while I explored the neighbourhood, and having taken observations and breakfasted, we were ready to start at 10 a.m.
Following the same ridge, after a few miles of ascent over much broken gneiss rock, the Ghorkas led me aside to the top of a knoll, 9,300 feet high, covered with stunted bushes, and commanding a splendid view to the west, of the broad, low, well cultivated valley of the Tambur, and the extensive town of Dunkotah on its banks, about twenty-five miles off; the capital of this part of Nepal, and famous for its manufactory of paper from the bark of the _Daphne._ Hence too I gained a fine view of the plains of India, including the course of the Cosi river, which, receiving the Arun and Tambur, debouches into the Ganges opposite Colgongl (see Chapter IV).
A little further on we crossed the main ridge of Sakkiazung, a long flexuous chain stretching for miles to the westward from Phulloot on Singalelah, and forming the most elevated and conspicuous transverse range in this part of Nepal: its streams flow south to the Myong, and north to feeders of the Tambur. Silver firs (_Abies Webbiana_) are found on all the summits; but to my regret none occurred in our path, which led just below their limit (10,000 feet), on the southern Himalayan ranges. There were, however, a few yews, exactly like the English. The view that opened on cresting this range was again magnificent, of Kinchinjunga, the western snows of Nepal, and the valley of the Tambur winding amongst wooded and cultivated hills to a long line of black-peaked, rugged mountains, sparingly snowed, which intervene between Kinchinjunga and the great Nepal mountain before mentioned. The extremely varied colouring on the infinite number of hill-slopes that everywhere intersected the Tambur valley was very pleasing. For fully forty miles to the northward there were no lofty forest-clad mountains, nor any apparently above 4000 to 5000 feet: villages and hamlets appeared everywhere, with crops of golden mustard and purple buckwheat in full flower; yellow rice and maize, green hemp, pulse, radishes, and barley, and brown millet. Here and there deep groves of oranges, the broad-leafed banana, and sugar-cane, skirted the bottoms of the valleys, through which the streams were occasionally seen, rushing in white foam over their rocky beds. It was a goodly sight to one who had for his only standard of comparison the view from Sinchul, of the gloomy forest-clad ranges of 6000 to 10,000 feet, that intervene between that mountain and the snowy girdle of Sikkim; though I question whether a traveller from more favoured climes would see more in this, than a thinly inhabited country, with irregular patches of poor cultivation, a vast amount of ragged forest on low hills of rather uniform height and contour, relieved by a dismal back-ground of frowning black mountains, sprinkled with snow! Kinchinjunga was again the most prominent object to the north-east, with its sister peaks of Kubra (24,005 feet), and Junnoo (25,312 feet). All these presented bare cliff"s for several thousand feet below their summits, composed of white rock with a faint pink tint:--on the other hand the lofty Nepal mountain in the far west presented cliffs of black rocks. From the summit two routes to the Tambur presented themselves; one, the main road, led west and south along the ridge, and then turned north, descending to the river; the other was shorter, leading abruptly down to the Pemmi river, and thence along its banks, west to the Tambur.
I chose the latter.
The descent was very abrupt on the first day, from 9,500 feet to 5000 feet, and on that following to the bed of the Pemmi, at 2000 feet; and the road was infamously bad, generally consisting of a narrow, winding, rocky path among tangled shrubs and large boulders, brambles, nettles, and th.o.r.n.y bushes, often in the bed of the torrent, or crossing spurs covered with forest, round whose bases it flowed. A little cultivation was occasionally met with on the narrow flat pebbly terraces which fringed the stream, usually of rice, and sometimes of the small-leaved variety of hemp (_Cannabis_), grown as a narcotic.
The rocks above 5000 feet were gneiss; below this, cliffs of very micaceous schist were met with, having a north-west strike, and being often vertical; the boulders again were always of gneiss. The streams seemed rather to occupy faults, than to have eroded courses for themselves; their beds were invariably rocky or pebbly, and the waters white and muddy from the quant.i.ty of alumina. In one little rocky dell the water gushed through a hole in a soft stratum in the gneiss; a trifling circ.u.mstance which was not lost upon the crafty Brahmins, who had cut a series of regular holes for the water, ornamented the rocks with red paint, and a row of little iron tridents of Siva, and dedicated the whole to Mahadeo.
In some spots the vegetation was exceedingly fine, and several large trees occurred: I measured a Toon (_Cedrela_) thirty feet in girth at five feet above the ground. The skirts of the forest were adorned with numerous jungle flowers, rice crops, blue _Acanthaceae_ and _Pavetta,_ wild cherry-trees covered with scarlet blossoms, and trees of the purple and lilac _Bauhinia_; while _Thunbergia, Convolvulus,_ and other climbers, hung in graceful festoons from the boughs, and on the dry micaceous rocks the _Luculia gratissima,_ one of our common hot-house ornaments, grew in profusion, its gorgeous heads of blossoms scenting the air.
At the junction of the Pemmi and Khawa rivers, there are high rocks of mica-slate, and broad river-terraces of stratified sand and pebbles, apparently alternating with deposits of shingle. On this hot, open expanse, elevated 2250 feet, appeared many trees and plants of the Terai and plains, as pomegranate, peepul, and sal; with extensive fields of cotton, indigo, and irrigated rice.
We followed the north bank of the Khawa, which runs westerly through a gorge, between high cliffs of chlorite, containing thick beds of stratified quartz. At the angles of the river broad terraces are formed, fifteen to thirty feet above its bed, similar to those just mentioned, and planted with rows of _Acacia Serissa,_ or laid out in rice fields, or sugar plantations.
I reached the east bank of the Tambur, on the 13th of November, at its junction with the Khawa, in a deep gorge. It formed a grand stream, larger than the Teesta, of a pale, sea-green, muddy colour, and flowed rapidly with a strong ripple, but no foam; it rises six feet in the rains, but ice never descends nearly so low; its breadth was sixty to eighty yards, its temperature 55 degrees to 58 degrees.
The breadth of the foaming Khawa was twelve to fifteen yards, and its temperature 56.5 degrees. The surrounding vegetation was entirely tropical, consisting of scrubby sal trees, acacia, _Grislea, Emblica, Hibiscus,_ etc.; the elevation being but 1300 feet, though the spot was twenty-five miles in a straight line from the plains. I camped at the fork of the rivers, on a fine terrace fifty feet above the water, about seventy yards long, and one hundred broad, quite flat-topped, and composed of shingle, gravel, etc., with enormous boulders of gneiss, quartz, and hornstone, much water-worn; it was girt by another broken terrace, twelve feet or so above the water, and covered with long gra.s.s and bushes.
The main road from Ilam to Wallanchoon, which I quitted on Sakkiazung, descends steeply on the opposite bank of the river, which I crossed in a canoe formed of a hollow trunk (of Toon), thirty feet long. There is considerable traffic along this road; and I was visited by numbers of natives, all Hindoos, who coolly squatted before my tent-door, and stared with their large black, vacant, l.u.s.trous eyes: they appear singularly indolent, and great beggars.
The land seems highly favoured by nature, and the population, though so scattered, is in reality considerable, the varied elevation giving a large surface; but the natives care for no more than will satisfy their immediate wants. The river swarms with fish, but they are too lazy to catch them, and they have seldom anything better to give or sell than sticks of sugar-cane, which when peeled form a refreshing morsel in these scorching marches. They have few and poor oranges, citrons, and lemons, very bad plantains, and but little else;--eggs, fowls, and milk are all scarce. Horned cattle are of course never killed by Hindoos, and it was but seldom that I could replenish my larder with a kid. Potatos are unknown, but my Sepoys often brought me large coa.r.s.e radishes and legumes.
From the junction of the rivers the road led up the Tambur to Mywa Guola; about sixteen miles by the river, but fully thirty-five, as we wound, ascended, and descended, during three days" marches. We were ferried across the stream in a canoe much ruder than that of the New Zealander. I watched my party crossing by boat-loads of fifteen each; the Bhotan men hung little sc.r.a.ps of rags on the bushes before embarking, the votive offerings of a Booddhist throughout central Asia;--the Lepcha, less civilised, scooped up a little water in the palm of his hand, and scattered it about, invoking the river G.o.d of his simple creed.
We always encamped upon gravelly terraces a few feet above the river, which flows in a deep gorge; its banks are very steep for 600 feet above the stream, though the mountains which flank it do not exceed 4000 to 5000 feet: this is a constant phenomenon in the Himalaya, and the roads, when low and within a few hundred feet of the river, are in consequence excessively steep and difficult; it would have been impossible to have taken ponies along that we followed, which was often not a foot broad, running along very steep cliffs, at a dizzy height above the river, and engineered with much trouble and ingenuity: often the bank was abandoned altogether, and we ascended several thousand feet to descend again. Owing to the steepness of these banks, and the reflected heat, the valley, even at this season, was excessively hot and close during the day, even when the temperature was below 70 degrees, and tempered by a brisk breeze which rushes upwards from sunrise to sunset. The sun at this season does not, in many places, reach the bottom of these valleys until 10 a.m., and is off again by 3 p.m.; and the radiation to a clear sky is so powerful that dew frequently forms in the shade, throughout the day, and it is common at 10 a.m. to find the thermometer sink from 70 degrees in a sheltered spot, dried by the sun, to 40 degrees in the shade close by, where the sun has not yet penetrated. Snow never falls.
The rocks throughout this part of the river-course are mica-schists (strike north-west, dip south-west 70 degrees, but very variable in inclination and direction); they are dry and gra.s.sy, and the vegetation wholly tropical, as is the entomology, which consists chiefly of large b.u.t.terflies, _Mantis_ and _Diptera._ Snowy mountains are rarely seen, and the beauty of the scenery is confined to the wooded banks of the main stream, which flows at an average inclination of fifty feet to the mile. Otters are found in the stream, and my party shot two, but could not procure them.
Ill.u.s.tration--TAMBUR RIVER & VALLEY (EAST NEPAL) FROM CHINTAM.
(ELEVATION 5000 FT.) LOOKING NORTH.
In one place the road ascended for 2000 feet above the river, to the village of Chingtam, situated on a lofty spur of the west bank, whence I obtained a grand view of the upper course of the river, flowing in a tremendous chasm, flanked by well-cultivated hills, and emerging fifteen miles to the northward, from black mountains of savage grandeur, whose rugged, precipitous faces were streaked with snow, and the tops of the lower ones crowned with the tabular-branched silver-fir, contrasting strongly with the tropical luxuriance around. Chingtam is an extensive village, covering an area of two miles, and surrounded with abundant cultivation; the houses, which are built in cl.u.s.ters, are of wood, or wattle and mud, with gra.s.s thatch. The villagers, though an indolent, staring race, are quiet and respectable; the men are handsome, the women, though less so, often good-looking. They have fine cattle, and excellent crops.
Immediately above Chingtam, the Tambur is joined by a large affluent from the west, the Mywa, which is crossed by an excellent iron bridge, formed of loops hanging from two parallel chains, along which is laid a plank of sal timber. Pa.s.sing through the village, we camped on a broad terrace, from sixty to seventy feet above the junction of the rivers, whose beds are 2100 feet above the sea.
Mywa Guola (or bazaar) is a large village and mart, frequented by Nepalese and Tibetans, who bring salt, wool, gold, musk, and blankets, to exchange for rice, coral, and other commodities; and a custom-house officer is stationed there, with a few soldiers.
The houses are of wood, and well built: the public ones are large, with verandahs, and galleries of carved wood; the workmanship is of Chinese character, and inferior to that of Katmandoo; but in the same style, and quite unlike anything I had previously seen.
The river-terrace is in all respects similar to that at the junction of the Tambur and Khawa, but very extensive: the stones it contained were of all sizes, from a nut to huge boulders upwards of fifteen feet long, of which many strewed the surface, while others were in the bed of the river: all were of gneiss, quartz, and granite, and had doubtless been transported from great elevations, as the rocks _in situ_--both here and for several thousand feet higher up the river--were micaceous schists, dipping in various directions, and at all angles, with, however, a general strike to the north-west.
I was here overtaken by a messenger with letters from Dr. Campbell, announcing that the Sikkim Rajah had disavowed the refusal to the Governor-General"s letter, and authorising me to return through any part of Sikkim I thought proper. The bearer was a Lepcha attached to the court: his dress was that of a superior person, being a scarlet jacket over a white cotton dress, the breadth of the blue stripes of which generally denotes wealth; he was accompanied by a sort of attache, who wore a magnificent pearl and gold ear-ring, and carried his master"s bow, as well as a basket on his back; while an attendant coolie bore their utensils and food. Meepo, or Teshoo (in Tibetan, Mr.), Meepo, as he was usually called, soon attached himself to me, and proved an active, useful, and intelligent companion, guide, and often collector, during many months afterwards.
The vegetation round Mywa Guola is still thoroughly tropical: the banyan is planted, and thrives tolerably, the heat being great during the day. Like the whole of the Tambur valley below 4000 feet, and especially on these flats, the climate is very malarious before and after the rains; and I was repeatedly applied to by natives suffering under attacks of fever. During the two days I halted, the mean temperature was 60 degrees (extremes, 80/41 degrees), that of the Tambur, 53 degrees, and of the Mywa, 56 degrees; each varying a few degrees (the smaller stream the most) between sunrise and 4 p.m.: the sunk thermometer was 72 degrees.
As we should not easily be able to procure food further on, I laid in a full stock here, and distributed blankets, etc., sufficient for temporary use for all the people, dividing them into groups or messes.
CHAPTER IX.
Leave Mywa--Suspension bridge--Landslips--Vegetation--Slope of riverbed--Bees" nests--Glacial phenomena--Tibetans, clothing, ornaments, amulets, salutation, children, dogs--Last Limboo village, Taptiatok--Beautiful scenery--Tibet village of Lelyp--_Opuntia_--_Edgeworthia_--Crab-apple--Chameleon and porcupine--Praying machine--_Abies Brunoniana_--European plants --Grand scenery--Arrive at Wallanchoon--Scenery around--Trees --Tibet houses--Manis and Mendongs--Tibet household--Food-- Tea-soup--Hospitality--Yaks and Zobo, uses and habits of-- Bhoteeas--Yak-hair tents--Guobah of Walloong--Jhatamansi-- Obstacles to proceeding--Climate and weather--Proceed-- Rhododendrons, etc.--Lichens--_Poa annua_ and Shepherd"s purse-- Tibet camp--Tuquoroma--Scenery of pa.s.s--Glaciers and snow-- Summit--Plants, woolly, etc.
On the 18th November, we left Mywa Guola, and continued up the river to the village of Wallanchoon or Walloong, which was reached in six marches. The snowy peak of Junnoo (alt. 25,312 feet.) forms a magnificent feature from this point, seen up the narrow gorge of the river, bearing N.N.E. about thirty miles. I crossed the Mewa, an affluent from the north, by another excellent suspension bridge.
In these bridges, the princ.i.p.al chains are clamped to rocks on either sh.o.r.e, and the suspended loops occur at intervals of eight to ten feet; the single sal-plank laid on these loops swings terrifically, and the handrails not being four feet high, the sense of insecurity is very great.
The Wallanchoon road follows the west bank, but the bridge above having been carried away, we crossed by a plank, and proceeded along very steep banks of decomposed chlorite schist, much contorted, and very soapy, affording an insecure footing, especially where great landslips had occurred, which were numerous, exposing acres of a reddish and white soil of felspathic clay, sloping at an angle of 30 degrees. Where the angle was less than 15 degrees, rice was cultivated, and partially irrigated. The lateral streams (of a muddy opal green) had cut beds 200 feet deep in the soft earth, and were very troublesome to cross, from the crumbling cliffs on either side, and their broad swampy channels.
Five or six miles above Mywa, the valley contracts much, and the Tambur (whose bed is elevated about 3000 feet) becomes a turbulent river, shooting along its course with immense velocity, torn into foam as it lashes the spurs of rock that flank it, and the enormous boulders with which its bed is strewn.* [In some places torrents of stone were carried down by landslips, obstructing the rivers; when in the beds of streams, they were often cemented by felspathic clay into a hard breccia of angular quartz, gneiss, and felspar nodules.] From this elevation to 9000 feet, its sinuous track extends about thirty miles, which gives the mean fall of 200 feet to the mile, quadruple of what it is for the lower part of its course. So long as its bed is below 5000 feet, a tropical vegetation prevails in the gorge, and along the terraces, consisting of tall bamboo, _Bauhinia, Acacia, Melastoma,_ etc.; but the steep mountain sides above are either bare and gra.s.sy, or cliffs with scattered shrubs and trees, and their summits are of splintered slaty gneiss, bristling with pines: those faces exposed to the south and east are invariably the driest and most gra.s.sy; while the opposite are well wooded. _Rhododendron arboreum_ becomes plentiful at 5000 to 6000 feet, forming a large tree on dry clayey slopes; it is accompanied by _Indigofera, Andromeda,_ _Spiraea,_ shrubby _Compositae,_ and very many plants absent at similar elevations on the wet outer Dorjiling ranges.
In the contracted parts of the valley, the mountains often dip to the river-bed, in precipices of gneiss, under the ledges of which wild bees build pendulous nests, looking like huge bats suspended by their wings; they are two or three feet long, and as broad at the top, whence they taper downwards: the honey is much sought for, except in spring, when it is said to be poisoned by Rhododendron flowers, just as that, eaten by the soldiers in the retreat of the Ten Thousand, was by the flowers of the _R. pontic.u.m._
Above these gorges are enormous acc.u.mulations of rocks, especially at the confluence of lateral valleys, where they rest upon little flats, like the river-terraces of Mywa, but wholly formed of angular shingle, flanked with beds of river-formed gravel: some of these boulders were thirty or forty yards across, and split as if they had fallen from a height; the path pa.s.sing between the fragments.* [The split fragments I was wholly unable to account for, till my attention was directed by Mr. Darwin to the observations of Charpentier and Aga.s.siz, who refer similar ones met with in the Alps, to rocks which have fallen through creva.s.ses in glaciers.--See "Darwin on Glaciers and Transported Boulders in North Wales." London, "Phil. Mag." xxi.
p. 180.] At first I imagined that they had been precipitated from the mountains around; and I referred the shingle to land-shoots, which during the rains descend several thousand feet in devastating avalanches, damming up the rivers, and destroying houses, cattle, and cultivation; but though I still refer the materials of many such terraces to this cause, I consider those at the mouths of valleys to be due to ancient glacial action, especially when laden with such enormous blocks as are probably ice-transported.
A change in the population accompanies that in the natural features of the country, Tibetans replacing the Limboos and Kha.s.s-tribes of Nepal, who inhabit the lower region. We daily pa.s.sed parties of ten or a dozen Tibetans, on their way to Mywa Guola, laden with salt; several families of these wild, black, and uncouth-looking people generally travelling together. The men are middle-sized, often tall, very square-built and muscular; they have no beard, moustache, or whiskers, the few hairs on their faces being carefully removed with tweezers. They are dressed in loose blanket robes, girt about the waist with a leather belt, in which they place their iron or bra.s.s pipes, and from which they suspend their long knives, chopsticks, tobacco-pouch, tweezers, tinder-box, etc. The robe, boots, and cap are grey, or striped with bright colours, and they wear skull-caps, and the hair plaited into a pig-tail.
The women are dressed in long flannel petticoats and spencer, over which is thrown a sleeveless, short, striped cloak, drawn round the waist by a girdle of broad bra.s.s or silver links, to which hang their knives, scissors, needlecases, etc., and with which they often strap their children to their backs; the hair is plaited in two tails, and the neck loaded with strings of coral and gla.s.s beads, and great lumps of amber, gla.s.s, and agate. Both s.e.xes wear silver rings and ear-rings, set with turquoises, and square amulets upon their necks and arms, which are boxes of gold or silver, containing small idols, or the nail-parings, teeth, or other reliques of some sainted Lama, accompanied with musk, written prayers, and other charms. All are good-humoured and amiable-looking people, very square and Mongolian in countenance, with broad mouths, high cheek-bones, narrow, upturned eyes, broad, flat noses, and low foreheads. White is their natural colour, and rosy cheeks are common amongst the younger women and children, but all are begrimed with filth and smoke; added to which, they become so weather-worn from exposure to the most rigorous climate in the world, that their natural hues are rarely to be recognised. Their customary mode of saluting one another is to hold out the tongue, grin, nod, and scratch their ear; but this method entails so much ridicule in the low countries, that they do not practise it to Nepalese or strangers; most of them when meeting me, on the contrary, raised their hands to their eyes, threw themselves on the ground, and kotowed most decorously, b.u.mping their foreheads three times on the ground; even the women did this on several occasions. On rising, they begged for a bucksheesh, which I gave in tobacco or snuff, of which they are immoderately fond. Both men and women constantly spin wool as they travel.
Ill.u.s.tration--TIBET MASTIFF.
These motley groups of Tibetans are singularly picturesque, from the variety in their parti-coloured dresses, and their odd appearance.
First comes a middle-aged man or woman, driving a little silky black yak, grunting under his load of 260 lb. of salt, besides pots, pans, and kettles, stools, churn, and bamboo vessels, keeping up a constant rattle, and perhaps, buried amongst all, a rosy-cheeked and lipped baby, sucking a lump of cheese-curd. The main body follow in due order, and you are soon entangled amidst sheep and goats, each with its two little bags of salt: beside these, stalks the huge, grave, bull-headed mastiff, loaded like the rest, his glorious bushy tail thrown over his back in a majestic sweep, and a thick collar of scarlet wool round his neck and shoulders, setting off his long silky coat to the best advantage; he is decidedly the n.o.blest-looking of the party, especially if a fine and pure black one, for they are often very ragged, dun-coloured, sorry beasts. He seems rather out of place, neither guarding nor keeping the party together, but he knows that neither yaks, sheep, nor goats, require his attention; all are perfectly tame, so he takes his share of work as salt-carrier by day, and watches by night as well. The children bring up the rear, laughing and chatting together; they, too, have their loads, even to the youngest that can walk alone.
The last village of the Limboos, Taptiatok, is large, and occupies a remarkable amphitheatre, apparently a lake-bed, in the course of the Tambur. After proceeding some way through a narrow gorge, along which the river foamed and roared, the sudden opening out of this broad, oval expanse, more than a mile long, was very striking: the mountains rose bare and steep, the west flank terminating in shivered ma.s.ses of rock, while that on the right was more undulating, dry, and gra.s.sy: the surface was a flat gravel-bed, through which meandered the rippling stream, fringed with alder. It was a beautiful spot, the clear, cool, murmuring river, with its rapids and shallows, forcibly reminding me of trout-streams in the highlands of Scotland.
Beyond Taptiatok we again crossed the river, and ascended over dry, gra.s.sy, or rocky spurs to Lelyp, the first Bhoteea village; it stands on a hill fully 1000 feet above the river, and commands a splendid view up the Yalloong and Kambachen valleys, which open immediately to the east, and appear as stupendous chasms in the mountains leading to the perpetual snows of Kinchin-junga. There were about fifty houses in the village, of wood and thatch, neatly fenced in with wattle, the ground between being carefully cultivated with radishes, buckwheat, wheat, and millet. I was surprised to find in one enclosure a fine healthy plant of _Opuntia,_ in flower, at this lat.i.tude and elevation. A Lama, who is the head man of the place, came out to greet us, with his family and a whole troop of villagers; they were the same cla.s.s of people as I have elsewhere described as Cis-nivean Tibetans, or Bhoteeas; none had ever before seen an Englishman, and I fear they formed no flattering opinion from the specimen now presented to them, as they seemed infinitely amused at my appearance, and one jolly dame clapped her hands to her sides, and laughed at my spectacles, till the hills echoed.
_Elaeagnus_ was common here, with _Edgeworthia Gardneri,_* [A plant allied to _Daphne,_ from whose bark the Nepal paper is manufactured.
It was named after the eminent Indian botanist, brother of the late Miss Edgeworth.] a beautiful shrub, with globes of waxy, cowslip-coloured, deliciously scented flowers; also a wild apple, which bears a small austere fruit, like the Siberian crab. In the bed of the river rice was still cultivated by Limboos, and subtropical plants continued. I saw, too, a chameleon and a porcupine, indicating much warmth, and seeming quite foreign to the heart of these stupendous mountains. From 6000 to 7000 feet, plants of the temperate regions blend with the tropical; such as rhododendron, oak, ivy, geranium, berberry, clematis, and shrubby _Vaccinia,_ which all made their appearance at Loongtoong, another Bhoteea village. Here, too, I first saw a praying machine, turned by water; it was enclosed in a little wooden house, and consisted of an upright cylinder containing a prayer, and with the words, "Om mani padmi om," (Hail to him of the Lotus and Jewel) painted on the circ.u.mference: it was placed over a stream, and made to rotate on its axis by a spindle which pa.s.sed through the floor of the building into the water, and was terminated by a wheel.
Above this the road followed the west bank of the river; the latter was a furious torrent, flowing through a gorge, fringed with a sombre vegetation, damp, and dripping with moisture, and covered with long _Usnea_ and pendulous mosses. The road was very rocky and difficult, sometimes leading along bluff faces of cliffs by wooden steps and single rotten planks. At 8000 feet I met with pines, whose trunks I had seen strewing the river for some miles lower down: the first that occurred was _Abies Brunoniana,_ a beautiful species, which forms a stately blunt pyramid, with branches spreading like the cedar, but not so stiff, and drooping gracefully on all sides. It is unknown on the outer ranges of Sikkim, and in the interior occupies a belt about 1000 feet lower than the silver fir (_A. Webbiana_). Many sub-alpine plants occur here, as _Lecesteria, Thalictrum,_ rose, thistles, alder, birch, ferns, berberry, holly, anemone, strawberry, raspberry, _Gnaphalium,_ the alpine bamboo, and oaks. The scenery is as grand as any pictured by Salvator Rosa; a river roaring in sheets of foam, sombre woods, crags of gneiss, and tier upon tier of lofty mountains flanked and crested with groves of black firs, terminating in snow-sprinkled rocky peaks.
Ill.u.s.tration--TAMBUR RIVER AT THE LOWER LIMIT OF PINES.
I now found the temperature getting rapidly cooler, both that of the air, which here at 8,066 feet fell to 32 degrees in the night, and that of the river, which was always below 40 degrees. It was in these narrow valleys only, that I observed the return cold current rushing down the river-courses during the nights, which were usually brilliant and very cold, with copious dew: so powerful, indeed, was the radiation, that the upper blanket of my bed became coated with moisture, from the rapid abstraction of heat by the frozen tarpaulin of my tent.
The rivers here are often fringed by flats of shingle, on which grow magnificent yews and pines; some of the latter were from 120 to 150 feet high, and had been blown down, owing to their scanty hold on the soil. I measured one, _Abies Brunoniana,_ twenty feet in girth.
Many alpine rhododendrons occur at 9000 feet, with _Astragalis_ and creeping Tamarisk. Three miles below Wallanchoon the river forks, being met by the Yangma from the north-east; they are impetuous torrents of about equal volume; the Tambur especially (here called the Walloong) is often broken into cascades, and cuts a deep gorge-like channel.
I arrived at the village of Wallanchoon on the 23rd of November.
It is elevated 10,385 feet, and situated in a fine open part of the Tambur valley, differing from any part lower down in all its natural features; being broad, with a rapid but not turbulent stream, very gra.s.sy, and both the base and sides of the flanking mountains covered with luxuriant dense bushes of rhododendron, rose, berberry and juniper. Red-legged crows, hawks, wild pigeons, and finches, abounded. There was but little snow on the mountains around, which are bare and craggy above, but sloping below. Bleak and forbidding as the situation of any Himalayan village at 10,000 feet elevation must be, that of Wallanchoon is rendered the more so from the comparatively few trees; for though the silver fir and juniper are both abundant higher up the valley, they have been felled here for building materials, fuel, and export to Tibet. From the naked limbs and tall gaunt black trunks of those that remain, stringy ma.s.ses of bleached lichen (_Usnea_) many feet long, stream in the wind.
Both men and women seemed fond of decorating their hair with wreaths of this lichen, which they dye yellow with leaves of _Symplocos._