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

(Hodgs.), a curious long-tailed animal peculiar to the Himalaya,

something between a diminutive bear and a squirrel. In the dense and gigantic forest of Abies Brunoniana and silver fir, I measured one of the former trees, and found it twenty-eight feet in girth, and

above 120 feet in height. The Abies Webbiana attains thirty-five

feet in girth, with a trunk unbranched for forty feet.

The path was narrow and difficult in the wood, and especially along the bed of the stream, where grew ugly trees of larch, eighty feet

high, and abundance of a new species of alpine strawberry with oblong fruit. At 11,560 feet elevation, I arrived at an immense rock of

gneiss, buried in the forest. Here currant-bushes were plentiful,

generally growing on the pine-trunks, in strange association with a small species of Begonia, a hothouse tribe of plants in England.

Emerging from the forest, vast old moraines are crossed, in a shallow mountain valley, several miles long and broad, 12,000 feet above the sea, choked with rhododendron shrubs, and nearly encircled by snowy mountains. Magnificent gentians grew here, also Senecio, Corydalis,

and the Aconitum luridum (n. sp.), whose root is said to be as

virulent as A. ferox and A. Napellus.* [The result of Dr.

Thomson's and my examination of the Himplayan aconites (of which

there are seven species) is that the one generally known as

A. ferox, and which supplies a great deal of the celebrated poison, is the common A. Napellus of Europe.] The plants were all fully a month behind those of the Lachen valley at the same elevation.

Heavy rain fell in the afternoon, and we halted under some rocks: as I had brought no tent, my bed was placed beneath the shelter of one, near which the rest of the party burrowed. I supped off half a yak's kidney, an enormous organ in this animal.

On the following morning we proceeded up the valley, towards a very steep rocky barrier, through which the river cut a narrow gorge, and beyond which rose lofty snowy mountains: the peak of Tunkra being to our left hand (north). Saxifrages grew here in profuse tufts of

golden blossoms, and Chrysosplenium, rushes, mountain-sorrel

(Oxyria), and the bladder-headed Saussurea, whose flowers are

enclosed in inflated membranous bracts, and smell like putrid meat: there were also splendid primroses, the spikenard valerian, and

golden Potentillas.

The ascent was steep and difficult, up a stony valley bounded by

precipices; in this the river flowed in a north-west direction, and we were obliged to wade along it, though its waters were bitterly

cold, the temperature being 39 degrees. At 15,000 feet we passed from great snowbeds to the surface of a glacier, partly an accumulation of snow, increased by lateral glaciers: its slope was very gentle for

several miles; the surface was eroded by rain, and very rough, whilst those of the lateral glaciers were ribboned, crevassed, and often

conspicuously marked with dirt-bands.

A gently sloping saddle, bare of snow, which succeeds the glacier,

forms the top of the Tunkra pass; it unites two snowy mountains, and opens on the great valley of the Machoo, which flows in a part of

Tibet between Sikkim and Bhotan; its height is 16,083 feet above the sea by barometer, and 16,137 feet by boiling-point. Nothing can

be more different than the two slopes of this pass; that by which I had come presented a gentle snowy acclivity, bounded by precipitous mountains; while that which opened before me was a steep, rocky,

broad, grassy valley, where not a particle of snow was to be seen,

and yaks were feeding near a small lake not 1000 feet down. Nor were snowy mountains visible anywhere in this direction, except far to the south-east, in Bhotan. This remarkable difference of climate is due to the southerly wind which ascends the Tibetan or Machoo valley

being drained by intervening mountains before reaching this pass,

whilst the Sikkim current brings abundant vapours up the Teesta and Lachoong valleys.

Chumulari lies to the E.N.E. of the Tunkra pass, and is only

twenty-six miles distant, but not seen; Phari is two marches off, in an easterly direction, and Choombi one to the south-east. Choombi is the general name given to a large Tibetan province that embraces the head of the Machoo river, and includes Phari, Eusa, Choombi, and

about thirteen other villages, corresponding to as many districts,

that contain from under a dozen to 300 houses each, varying with the season and state of trade. The latter is considerable, Phari being, next to Dorjiling, the greatest Tibetan, Bhotan, Sikkim, and Indian entrepot along the whole Himalaya east of Nepal. The general form of Choombi valley is triangular, the broader end northwards: it is

bounded by the Chola range on the west from Donkia to Gipmoochi, and by the Kamphee or Chakoong range to the east; which is, I believe,

continuous with Chumulari. These meridional ranges approximate to the southward, so as to form a natural boundary to Choombi. The Machoo

river, rising from Chumulari, flows through the Choombi district, and enters Bhotan at a large mart called Rinchingoong, whence it flows to the plains of India, where it is called at Couch-Behar, the Torsha, or, as some say, the Godadda, and falls into the Burrampooter.

The Choombi district is elevated, for the only cultivation is a

summer or alpine one, neither rice, maize, nor millet being grown

there: it is also dry, for the great height of the Bhotan mountains and the form of the Machou valley cut off the rains, and there is no dense forest. It is very mountainous, all carriage being on men's and yaks' backs, and is populous for this part of the country, the

inhabitants being estimated at 3000, in the trading season, when many families from Tibet and Bhotan erect booths at Phari.

A civil officer at Phari collects the revenue under the Lhassan

authorities, and there is also a Tibetan fort, an officer, and guard.

The inhabitants of this district more resemble the Bhotanese than

Tibetans, and are a thievish set, finding a refuge under the

Paro-Pilo of Bhotan,* [There was once a large monastery, called

Kazioo Goompa, at Choombi, with upwards of one hundred Lamas.

During a struggle between the Sikkim and Bhotan monks for superiority in it, the abbot died. His avatar reappeared in two places at once!

in Bhotan as a relative of the Paro-Pilo himself, and in Sikkim as a brother of the powerful Gangtok Kajee. Their disputes were referred to the Dalai Lama, who pronounced for Sikkim. This was not to be

disputed by the Pilo, who, however, plundered the Goompa of its

silver, gold, and books, leaving nothing but the bare walls for the successful Lama! The Lhassan authorities made no attempt to obtain

restitution, and the monastery has been consequently neglected.] who taxes the refugees according to the estimate he forms of their

plunder. The Tibetans seldom pursue the culprits, as the Lhassan

government avoids all interference south of their own frontier.

From Choombi to Lhassa is fifteen days' long journeys for a man

mounted on a stout mule; all the rice passing through Phari is

monopolised there for the Chinese troops at Lhassa. The grazing for yaks and small cattle is excellent in Choombi, and the _Pinus

excelsa_ is said to grow abundantly there, though unknown in Sikkim, but I have not heard of any other peculiarity in its productions.

Very few plants grew amongst the stones at the top of the Tunkra

pass, and those few were mostly quite different from those of Palung and Kongra Lama. A pink-floweerd Arenaria, two kinds of

Corydalis, the cottony Saussurea, and diminutive primroses, were the most conspicuous.* [The only others were Leontopodium, Sedum,

Saxifrage, Ramunculus hyperboreus, Ligularia, two species of

Polygonum, a Trichostomum, Stereocaulon, and _Lecidea

geographica,_ not one grass or sedge.] The wind was variable, blowing alternately up both valleys, bringing much snow when it blew from the Teesta, though deflected to a north-west breeze; when, on the

contrary, it blew from Tibet, it was, though southerly, dry.

Clouds obscured all distant view. The temperature varied between noon and 1.30 p.m. from 39 degrees to 40.5 degrees, the air being

extremely damp.

Returning to the foot of the glacier, I took up my quarters for two days under an enormous rock overlooking the broad flat valley in

which I had spent the previous night, and directly fronting Tunkra

mountain, which bore north about five miles distant. This rock was

sixty to eighty feet high, and 15,250 feet above the sea; it was of gneiss, and was placed on the top of a bleak ridge, facing the north; no shrub or bush being near it. The gentle slope outwards of the rock afforded the only shelter, and a more utterly desolate place than

Lacheepia, as it is called, I never laid my unhoused head in.

It commanded an incomparable view due west across the Lachoong

and Lachen valleys, of the whole group of Kinchinjunga snows, from

Tibet southwards, and as such was a most valuable position for

geographical purposes.

The night was misty, and though the temperature was 35 degrees, I was miserably cold; for my blankets being laid on the bare ground, the

chill seemed to strike from the rock to the very marrow of my bones.

In the morning the fog hung till sunrise, when it rose majestically from all the mountain-tops; but the view obtained was transient, for in less than an hour the dense woolly banks of fog which choked the valleys ascended like a curtain to the warmed atmosphere above, and slowly threw a veil over the landscape. I waited till the last streak of snow was shut out from my view, when I descended, to breakfast on Himalayan grouse (Tetrao-perdix nivicola), a small gregarious bird which inhabits the loftiest stony mountains, and utters a short cry of "Quiok, quiok;" in character and appearance it is intermediate

between grouse and partridge, and is good eating, though tough.

Hoping to obtain another view, which might enable me to correct the bearings taken that morning, I was tempted to spend a second night in the open air at Lacheepia, passing the day botanizing* [Scarcely a

grass, and no Astragali, grow on these stony and snowy slopes: and the smallest heath-like Andromeda, a still smaller Menziesia (an erotic genus, previously unknown in the Himalaya) and a prostrate

willow, are the only woody-stemmed plants above 15,000 feet.] in the vicinity, and taking observations of the barometer and wet-bulb:

I also boiled three thermometers by turns, noting the grave errors

likely to attend observations of this instrument for elevation.*

[These will be more particularly alluded to in the Appendix, where

will be found a comparison of elevations, deduced from boiling point and from barometric observations. The height of Lacheepia is 14,912

feet by boiling-point, and 15,262 feet by barometer.] Little rain

fell during the day, but it was heavy at night, though there was

fortunately no wind; and I made a more comfortable bed with tufts of juniper brought up from below. Our fire was principally of wet

rhododendron wood, with masses of the aromatic dwarf species, which, being full of resinous glands, blazed with fury. Next day, after a

very transient glimpse of the Kinchinjunga snows, I descended to

Lachoong, where I remained for some days botanizing. During my stay I was several times awakened by all the noises and accompaniments of a night-attack or alarm; screaming voices, groans, shouts, and

ejaculations, the beating of drums and firing of guns, and flambeaux of pine-wood gleaming amongst the trees, and flitting from house to house. The cause, I was informed, was the, presence of a demon, who required exorcisement, and who generally managed to make the

villagers remember his visit, by their missing various articles after