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

no signs of animation,

and had all the symptoms of serous apoplexy. The Lama perched a

saddle on a stone, and burning incense before it, scattered rice to the winds, invoking Kinchin, Donkia, and all the neighbouring peaks.

A strong dose of calomel and jalap, which we poured down the sick

lad's throat, contributed materially to the success of these

incantations.

The Tibetan Sepoys were getting tired of our delays, which so much

favoured my operations; but though showing signs of impatience and

sulkiness, they behaved well to the last; taking the sick man to the top of the pass on their yaks, and assisting all the party: nothing, however, would induce them to cross into Sikkim, which they

considered as "Company's territory."

Before proceeding to the pass, I turned off to the east, and

re-ascended Donkia to upwards of 19,000 feet, vainly hoping to get a more distant view, and other bearings of the Tibetan mountains.

The ascent was over enormous piles of loose rocks split by the frost, and was extremely fatiguing. I reached a peak overhanging a steep

precipice, at whose base were small lakes and glaciers, from which

flowed several sources of the Lachen, afterwards swelled by the great affluent from Cholamoo lake. A few rocks striking north-east and

dipping north-west, projected at the very summit, with frozen snow

amongst them, beyond which the ice and precipices rendered it

impossible to proceed: but though exposed to the north, there was no perpetual snow in the ordinary acceptation of the term, and an arctic European lichen (Lecidea oreina) grew on the top, so faintly

discolouring the rocks as hardly to be detected without a

magnifying-glass.

I descended obliquely, down a very steep slope of 35 degrees, over

upwards of a thousand feet of debris, the blocks on which were so

loosely poised on one another, that it was necessary to proceed with the utmost circumspection, for I was alone, and a false step would

almost certainly have been followed by breaking a leg. The alternate freezing and thawing of rain amongst these masses, must produce a

constant downward motion in the whole pile of debris (which was

upwards of 2000 feet high), and may account for the otherwise

unexplained phenomenon of continuous shoots of angular rocks reposing on very gentle slopes in other places.* [May not the origin of the

streams of quartz blocks that fill gently sloping broad valleys

several miles long, in the Falkland Islands, be thus explained? (See "Darwin's Journal," in Murray's Home and Col. Lib.) The extraordinary shifting in the position of my thermometer left among the rocks of

the Donkia pass (see chapter xxii), and the mobile state of the

slopes I descended on this occasion, first suggested this explanation to me. When in the Falkland Islands I was wholly unable to offer any explanation of the phenomenon there, to which my attention had been drawn by Mr. Darwin's narrative.]

The north ascent to the Donkia pass is by a path well selected

amongst immense angular masses of rock, and over vast piles of

debris: the strike on this, the north face, was again north-east, and dip north-west: I arrived at the top at 3 p.m., throughly fatigued, and found my faithful Lepcha lads (Cheytoong and Bassebo) nestling

under a rock with my theodolite and barometers, having been awaiting my arrival in the biting wind for three hours. My pony stood there

too, the picture of patience, and laden with minerals.

After repeating my observations, I proceeded to Momay Samdong, where I arrived after dusk. I left a small bottle of brandy and some

biscuits with the lads, and it was well I did so, for the pony

knocked up before reaching Momay, and rather than leave my bags of

stones, they passed the night by the warm flank of the beast, under a rock at 18,000 feet elevation, without other food, fire, or shelter.

I found my companion encamped at Momay, on the spot I had occupied in September; he had had the utmost difficulty in getting his coolies

on, as they threw down their light loads in despair, and lying with their faces to the ground, had to be roused from a lethargy that

would soon have been followed by death.

We rested for a day at Momay, and on the 20th, attempted to ascend to the Donkia glacier, but were driven back by a heavy snow-storm.

The scenery on arriving here, presented a wide difference to that we had left; snow lying at 16,500 feet, whereas immediately to the north of the same mountain there was none at 19,000 feet. Before leaving

Momay; I sealed two small glass flasks containing the air of this

elevation, by closing with a spirit lamp a very fine capillary tube, which formed the opening to each; avoiding the possibility of heating the contents by the hand or otherwise. The result of its analysis by Mr. Muller (who sent me the prepared flasks), was that it contained 36.538 per cent. in volume of oxygen; whereas his repeated analysis of the air of Calcutta gives 21 per cent. Such a result is too

anomalous to be considered satisfactory.

I again visited the Kinchinjhow glacier and hot springs; the water

had exactly the same temperature as in the previous month, though the mean temperature of the air was 8 degrees or 9 degrees lower.

The minimum thermometer fell to 22 degrees, being 10 degrees lower

than it ever fell in September.

We descended to Yeumtong in a cold drizzle, arriving by sunset; we

remained through the following day, hoping to explore the lower

glacier on the opposite side of the valley: which, however, the

weather entirely prevented. I have before mentioned (chapter xxiii) that in descending in autumn from the drier and more sunny rearward Sikkim valleys, the vegetation is found to be most backward in the

lowest and dampest regions. On this occasion, I found asters,

grasses, polygonums, and other plants that were withered, brown, and seeding at Momay (14,000 to 15,000 feet), at Yeumtong (12,000 feet) green and unripe; and 2000 feet lower still, at Lachoong, the

contrast was even more marked. Thus the short backward spring and

summer of the Arctic zone is overtaken by an early and forward

seed-time and winter: so far as regards the effects of mean

temperature, the warmer station is in autumn more backward than the colder. This is everywhere obvious in the prevalent plants of each, and is especially recognisable in the rhododendrons; as the following table shows:--

16,000 to 17,000 feet, R. nivale flowers in July; fruits in

September=2 months.

13,000 to 14,000 feet, R. anthopogon flowers in June; fruits in

Oct.=4 months.

11,000 to 12,000 feet, R. campanulatum flowers in May; fruits in

Nov.=8 months.

8,000 to 9,000 feet, R. argenteum flowers in April; fruits in

Dec.=8 months.

And so it is with many species of Compositae and Umbelliferae,

and indeed of all natural orders, some of which I have on the same

day gathered in ripe fruit at 13,000 to 14,000 feet, and found still in flower at 9000 to 10,000 feet. The brighter skies and more

powerful and frequent solar radiation at the greater elevations,

account for this apparent inversion of the order of nature.* [The

distribution of the seasons at different elevations in the Himalaya gives rise to some anomalies that have puzzled naturalists. From the middle of October to that of May, vegetation is torpid above 14,000

feet, and indeed almost uniformly covered with snow. From November

till the middle of April, vegetation is also torpid above 10,000

feet, except that a few trees and bushes do not ripen all their seeds till December. The three winter months (December, January, and

February) are all but dead above 6000 feet, the earliest appearance of spring at Dorjiling (7000 feet) being at the sudden accession of heat in March. From May till August the vegetation at each elevation is (in ascending order) a month behind that below it; 4000 feet being about equal to a month of summer weather in one sense. I mean by

this, that the genera and natural orders (and sometimes the species) which flower at 8000 feet in May, are not so forward at 12,000 feet till June, nor at 16,000 feet till July. After August, however, the reverse holds good; then the vegetation is as forward at 16,000 feet as at 8000 feet. By the end of September most of the natural orders and genera have ripened their fruit in the upper zone, though they

have flowered as late as July; whereas October is the fruiting month at 12,000, and November below 10,000 feet. Dr. Thomson does not

consider that the more sunny climate of the loftier elevations

sufficiently accounts for this, and adds the stimulus of cold, which must act by checking the vegetative organs and hastening maturation.]

I was disappointed at finding the rhododendron seeds still immature at Yeumtong, for I was doubtful whether the same kinds might be met with at the Chola pass, which I had yet to visit; besides which,

their tardy maturation threatened to delay me for an indefinite

period in the country. Viburnum and Lonicera, however, were ripe and abundant; the fruits of both are considered poisonous in Europe, but here the black berries of a species of the former (called

"Nalum") are eatable and agreeable; as are those of a Gualtheria,

which are pale blue, and called "Kalumbo." Except these, and the

cherry mentioned above, there are no other autumnal fruits above

10,000 feet: brambles, strange as it may appear, do not ascend beyond that elevation in the Sikkim Himalaya, though so abundant below it, both in species and individuals, and though so typical of

northern Europe.

At Lachoong we found all the yaks that had been grazing till the end of September at the higher elevations, and the Phipun presented our men with one of a gigantic size, and proportionally old and tough.

The Lepchas barbarously slaughtered it with arrows, and feasted on

the flesh and entrails, singed and fried the skin, and made soup of the bones, leaving nothing but the horns and hoofs. Having a fine

day, they prepared some as jerked meat, cutting it into thin strips, which they dried on the rocks. This (called "Schat-chew," dried meat) is a very common and favourite food in Tibet, I found it palatable; but on the other hand, the dried saddles of mutton, of which they

boast so much, taste so strongly of tallow, that I found it

impossible to swallow a morsel of them.* [Raw dried split fish are

abundantly cured (without salt) in Tibet; they are caught in the Yaru and great lakes of Ramchoo, Dobtah, and Yarbru, and are chiefly carp, and allied fish, which attain a large size. It is one of the most

remarkable facts in the zoology of Asia, that no trout or salmon

inhabits any of the rivers that debouche into the Indian Ocean (the so-called Himalayan trout is a species of carp). This widely

distributed natural order of fish (Salmonidae) is however, found in the Oxus, and in all the rivers of central Asia that flow north and west, and the Salmo orientalis, M'Clelland ("Calcutta Journ. Nat.

Hist." iii., p. 283), was caught by Mr. Griffith (Journals, p. 404) in the Bamean river (north of the Hindo Koosh) which flows into the Oxus, and whose waters are separated by one narrow mountain ridge

from those of the feeders of the Indus. The central Himalayan rivers often rise in Tibet from lakes full of fish, but have none (at least during the rains) in that rapid part of their course from 10,000 to 14,000 feet elevation: below that fish abound, but I believe

invariably of different species from those found at the sources of

the same rivers. The nature of the tropical ocean into which all the Himalayan rivers