Himalayan Journals, vol 2 by J. D. Hooker (great reads TXT) 📖

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

degrees to 52 degrees; the mean being 50 degrees.

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 degrees 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* [Alluding to the sextant, etc.] 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.

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 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 grass.

Illustration--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 grassy 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 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.

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.* [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.] 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 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