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

issued orders for my being cared for, and having some practice among the villagers in

treating rheumatism and goitres, I had the power of supplying my own larder; but I found it impossible to buy food for my people. At last, the real state of the case came out; that the Rajah having gone to

Choombi, his usual summer-quarters in Tibet, the Dewan had issued

orders that no food should be sold or given to my people, and that no roads were to be repaired during my stay in the country; thus cutting off my supplies from Dorjiling, and, in short, attempting to starve me out. At this juncture, Meepo received a letter from the Durbar

purporting to be from the Rajah, commanding my immediate return, on the grounds that I had been long enough in the country for my

objects: it was not addressed to me, and I refused to receive it as an official communication; following up my refusal by telling Meepo that if he thought his orders required it, he had better leave me and return to the Rajah, as I should not stir without directions from Dr.

Campbell, except forwards. He remained, however, and said he had

written to the Rajah, urging him to issue stringent orders for my

party being provisioned.

We were reduced to a very short allowance before the long-expected

supplies came, by which time our necessities had almost conquered my resolution not to take by force of the abundance I might see around, however well I might afterwards pay. It is but fair to state that the improvident villagers throughout Sikkim are extremely poor in

vegetable food at this season, when the winter store is consumed, and the crops are still green. They are consequently obliged to purchase rice from the lower valleys, which, owing to the difficulties of

transport, is very dear; and to obtain it they barter wool, blankets, musk, and Tibetan produce of all kinds. Still they had cattle, which they would willingly have sold to me, but for the Dewan's orders.

There is a great difference between the vegetation of Dorjiling and that of similar elevations near Choongtam situated far within the

Himalaya: this is owing to the steepness and dryness of the latter

locality, where there is an absence of dense forest, which is

replaced by a number of social grasses clothing the mountain sides, many new and beautiful kinds of rhododendrons, and a variety of

European genera,* [_Deutzia, Saxifraga caliata, Thalictrum,

Euphorbia,_ yellow violet, _Labiatae, Androsace, Leguminosae,

Coriaria, Delphinium, currant, _Umbelliferae, primrose, _Anemone, Convallaria, Roscoea, Mitella, Herminium, Drosera.] which (as I have elsewhere noticed) are either wholly absent from the damper ranges of Dorjiling, or found there several thousand feet higher up. On the hill above Choongtam village, I gathered, at 5000 to 6000 feet,

Rhododendron arboreum and Dalhousiae, which do not generally grow at Dorjiling below 7,500 feet.* [I collected here ten kinds of

rhododendron, which, however, are not the social plants that they

become at greater elevations. Still, in the delicacy and beauty of

their flowers, four of them, perhaps, excel any others; they are, _R.

Aucklandii,_ whose flowers are five inches and a half in diameter;

R. Maddeni, R. Dalhousiae, and R. Edgeworthii, all white-flowered bushes, of which the two first rise to the height of small trees.]

The yew appears at 7000 feet, whilst, on the outer ranges (as on

Tonglo), it is only found at 9,500 to 10,000 feet; and whereas on

Tonglo it forms an immense tall tree, with long sparse branches and slender drooping twigs, growing amongst gigantic magnolias and oaks, at Choongtam it is small and rigid, and much resembling in appearance our churchyard yew.* [The yew spreads east from Kashmir to the Assam Himalaya and the Khasia mountains; and the Japan, Philippine Island, Mexican, and other North American yews, belong to the same

widely-diffused species. In the Khasia (its most southern limit) it is found as low as 5000 feet above the sea-level.] At 8000 feet the Abies Brunoniana is found; a tree quite unknown further south; but neither the larch nor the Albies Smithiana (Khutrow) accompanied

it, they being confined to still more northern regions.

I have seldom had occasion to allude to snakes, which are rare and

shy in most parts of the Himalaya; I, however, found an extremely

venomous one at Choongtam; a small black viper, a variety of the

cobra di capello,* [Dr. Gray, to whom I am indebted for the following information, assures me that this reptile is not specifically

distinct from the common Cobra of India; though all the mountain

specimens of it which he has examined retain the same small size and dark colour. Of the other Sikkim reptiles which I procured seven are Colubridae and innocuous; five Crotalidae are venomous, three of which are new species belonging to the genera Parias and

Trimesurus. Lizards are not abundant, but I found at Choongtam a

highly curious one, Plestiodon Sikkimensis, Gray; a kind of Skink, whose only allies are two North American congeners; and a species of Agama (a chameleon-like lizard) which in many important points more resembled an allied American genus than an Asiatic one. The common

immense earth-worm of Sikkim, Ichthyophis glutinosus, is a native of the Khasia mountains, Singapore, Ceylon and Java. It is a most

remarkable fact, that whereas seven out of the twelve Sikkim snakes are poisonous, the sixteen species I procured in the Khasia mountains are innocuous.] which it replaces in the drier grassy parts of the interior of Sikkim, the large cobra not inhabiting in the mountain

regions. Altogether I only collected about twelve species in Sikkim, seven of which are venomous, and all are dreaded by the Lepchas.

An enormous hornet (Vespa magnifica, Sm.), nearly two inches long, was here brought to me alive in a cleft-stick, lolling out its great thorn-like sting, from which drops of a milky poison distilled: its sting is said to produce fatal fevers in men and cattle, which may

very well be the case, judging from that of a smaller kind, which

left great pain in my hand for two days, while a feeling of numbness remained in the arm for several weeks. It is called Vok by the

Lepchas, a common name for any bee: its larvae are said to be

greedily eaten, as are those of various allied insects.

Choongtam boasts a profusion of beautiful insects, amongst which the British swallow-tail butterfly (Papilio Machaon) disports itself in company with magnificent black, gold, and scarlet-winged butterflies, of the Trojan group, so typical of the Indian tropics. At night my

tent was filled with small water-beetles (Berosi) that quickly put out the candle; and with lovely moths came huge cockchafers

(Encerris Griffithii), and enormous and foetid flying-bugs (of the genus Derecterix), which bear great horns on the thorax.

The irritation of mosquito and midge bites, and the disgusting

insects that clung with spiny legs to the blankets of my tent and

bed, were often as effectual in banishing sleep, as were my anxious thoughts regarding the future.

The temple at Choongtam is a poor wooden building, but contains some interesting drawings of Lhassa, with its extensive Lamaseries and

temples; they convey the idea of a town, gleaming, like Moscow, with gilded and copper roofs; but on a nearer aspect it is found to

consist of a mass of stone houses, and large religious edifices many stories high, the walls of which are regularly pierced with small

square ornamented windows.* [MM. Huc and Gabet's account of Lhassa

is, I do not doubt, excellent as to particulars; but the trees which they describe as magnificent, and girdling the city, have uniformly been represented to me as poor stunted willows, apricots, poplars,

and walnuts, confined to the gardens of the rich. No doubt the

impression left by these objects on the minds of travellers from

tree-less Tartary, and of Sikkimites reared amidst stupendous

forests, must be widely different. The information concerning Lhassa collected by Timkowski, "Travels of the Russian Mission to China" (in 1821) is greatly exaggerated, though containing much that is true and curious. The dyke to protect the city from inundations I never heard of; but there is a current story in Sikkim that Lhassa is built in a lake-bed, which was dried up by a miracle of the Lamas, and that in heavy rain the earth trembles, and the waters bubble through the

soil: a Dorjiling rain-fall, I have been assured, would wash away the whole city. Ermann (Travels in Siberia, i., p. 186), mentions a town (Klinchi, near Perm), thus built over subterraneous springs, and in constant danger of being washed away. MM. Huc and Gabet allude to the same tradition under another form. They say that the natives of the banks of the Koko-nor affirm that the waters of that lake once

occupied a subterranean position beneath Lhassa, and that the waters sapped the foundations of the temples as soon as they were built,

till withdrawn by supernatural agency.]

There is nothing remarkable in the geology of Choongtam: the base of the hill consists of the clay and mica slates overlain by gneiss,

generally dipping to the eastward; in the latter are granite veins, containing fine tourmalines. Actinolites are found in some highly

metamorphic gneisses, brought by landslips from the neighbouring

heights. The weather in May was cloudy and showery, but the rain

which fell was far less in amount than that at Dorjiling: during the day the sun's power was great; but though it rose between five and

six a.m., it never appeared above the lofty peaked mountains that

girdle the valley till eight a.m. Dark pines crest the heights

around, and landslips score their flanks with white seams below;

while streaks of snow remain throughout the month at 9000 feet above; and everywhere silvery torrents leap down to the Lachen and Lachoong.

Illustration--JUNIPERUS RECURVA (height 30 feet).

CHAPTER XIX.

Routes from Choongtam to Tibet frontier -- Choice of that by the

Lachen river -- Arrival of Supplies -- Departure -- Features of the valley -- Eatable Polygonum -- Tumlong -- Cross Taktoong river --

Pines, larches, and other trees -- Chateng pool -- Water-plants and insects -- Tukcham mountain -- Lamteng village -- Inhabitants --

Alpine monkey -- Botany of temperate Himalaya -- European and

American fauna -- Japanese and Malayan genera -- Superstitious

objections to shooting -- Customs of people -- Rain -- Run short of provisions -- Altered position of Tibet frontier -- Zemu Samdong --

Imposition -- Vegetation -- Uses of pines -- Ascent to Thlonok river -- Balanophora wood for making cups -- Snow-beds -- Eatable mushrooms and Smilacina -- Asarabacca -- View of Kinchinjunga -- Arum-roots, preparation of for food -- Liklo mountain -- Bebaviour of my party --

Bridge constructed over Zemu -- Cross river -- Alarm of my party --

Camp on Zemu river.

From this place there were two routes to Tibet, each of about six

days' journey. One lay to the north-west up the Lachen valley to the Kongra Lama pass, the other to the east up the Lachoong to the Donkia pass. The latter river has its source in small lakes in Sikkim, south of the Donkia mountain, a shoulder of which the pass crosses,

commanding a magnificent view into Tibet. The Lachen, on the other

hand (the principal source of the Teesta), rises beyond Sikkim in the Cholamoo lakes. The frontier at Kongra Lama was described to me as

being a political, and not a natural boundary, marked out by cairns, standing on a plain, and crossing the Lachen river. To both Donkia

and Kongra Lama I had every right to go, and was determined, if

possible, to reach them, in spite of Meepo's ignorance, our guide's endeavours to frighten my party and mislead myself, and the