[165] A curious leafless parasite, mentioned at vol. i, [p. 133.]
In the ravines there were enormous accumulations of ice, the result of avalanches; one of them crossed the river, forming a bridge thirty feet thick, at an elevation of only 9,800 feet above the sea. This ice-bridge was 100 yards broad, and flanked by heaps of boulders, the effects of combined land and snowslips. These stony places were covered with a rich herbage of rhubarb, primroses, Euphorbia, Sedum, Polygonum, Convallaria, and a purple Dentaria (“Kenroop-bi”) a cruciferous plant much eaten as a pot-herb. In the pinewoods a large mushroom (“Onglau,”[[166]] Tibet.) was abundant, which also forms a favourite article of food. Another pot-herb (to which I was afterwards more indebted than any) was a beautiful Smilacina, which grows from two to five feet high, and has plaited leaves and crowded panicles of white bell-shaped flowers, like those of its ally the lily of the valley, which it also resembles in its mucilaginous properties. It is called “Chokli-bi,”[[167]] and its young flower-heads, sheathed in tender green leaves, form an excellent vegetable. Nor must I forget to include amongst the eatable plants of this hungry country, young shoots of the mountain-bamboo, which are good either raw or boiled, and may be obtained up to 12,000 feet in this valley. A species of Asarum (Asarabacca) grows in the pine-woods; a genus not previously known to be Himalayan. The root, like its English medicinal congener, has a strong and peculiar smell. At 10,000 feet Abies Webbiana commences, with a close undergrowth of a small twiggy holly. This, and the dense thicket of rhododendron[[168]] on the banks of the river and edges of the wood, rendered the march very fatiguing, and swarms of midges kept up a tormenting irritation.
[166] Cortinarius Emodensis of the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, who has named and described it from my specimens and drawings. It is also called “Yungla tchamo” by the Tibetans, the latter word signifying a toadstool. Mr. Berkeley informs me that the whole vast genus Cortinarius scarcely possesses a single other edible species; he adds that C. violaceus and violaceo-cinereus are eaten in Austria and Italy, but not always with safety.
[167] It is also found on the top of Sinchul, near Dorjiling.
[168] Of which I had already gathered thirteen kinds in this valley.
The Zemu continued an impetuous muddy torrent, whose hoarse voice, mingled with the deep grumbling noise[[169]] of the boulders rolling along its bed, was my lullaby for many nights. Its temperature at Zemu Samdong was 45° to 46° in June. At its junction with the Thlonok, it comes down a steep gulley from the north, foreshortened into a cataract 1000 feet high, and appearing the smaller stream of the two; whilst the Thlonok winds down from the snowy face of Kinchinjunga, which is seen up the valley, bearing W.S.W., about twenty miles distant. All around are lofty and rocky mountains, sparingly wooded with pines and larch, chiefly on their south flanks, which receive the warm, moist, up-valley winds; the faces exposed to the north being colder and more barren: exactly the reverse of what is the case at Choongtam, where the rocky and sunny south-exposed flanks are the driest.
[169] The dull rumbling noise thus produced is one of the most singular phenomena in these mountains, and cannot fail to strike the observer. At night, especially, the sound seems increased, the reason of which is not apparent, for in these regions, so wanting in animal life, the night is no stiller than the day, and the melting of snow being less, the volume of waters must be somewhat, though not conspicuously, diminished. The interference of sound by heated currents of different density is the most obvious cause of the diminished reverberation during the day, to which Humboldt adds the increased tension of vapour, and possibly an echo from its particles.
My tent was pitched on a broad terrace, opposite the junction of the Zemu and Thlonok, and 10,850 feet above the sea. It was sheltered by some enormous transported blocks of gneiss, fifteen feet high, and surrounded by a luxuriant vegetation of most beautiful rhododendrons in full flower, willow, white rose, white flowered cherry, thorn, maple and birch. Some great tuberous-rooted Arums[[170]] were very abundant; and the ground was covered with small pits, in which were large wooden pestles: these are used in the preparation of food from the arums, to which the miserable inhabitants of the valley have recourse in spring, when their yaks are calving. The roots are bruised with the pestles, and thrown into these holes with water. Acetous fermentation commences in seven or eight days, which is a sign that the acrid poisonous principle is dissipated: the pulpy, sour, and fibrous mass is then boiled and eaten; its nutriment being the starch, which exists in small quantities, and which they have not the skill to separate by grating and washing. This preparation only keeps a few days, and produces bowel complaints, and loss of the skin and hair, especially when insufficiently fermented. Besides this, the “chokli-bi,” and many other esculents, abounded here; and we had great need of them before leaving this wild uninhabited region.
[170] Two species of Arisæma, called “Tong” by the Tibetans, and “Sinkree” by the Lepchas.
I repeatedly ascended the north flank of Tukcham along a watercourse, by the side of which were immense slips of rocks and snow-beds; the mountain-side being excessively steep. Some of the masses of gneiss thus brought down were dangerously poised on slopes of soft shingle, and daily moved a little downwards. All the rocks were gneiss and granite, with radiating crystals of tourmaline as thick as the thumb. Below 12,000 to 13,000 feet the mountain-sides were covered with a dense scrub of rhododendron bushes, except where broken by rocks, landslips, and torrents: above this the winter’s snow lay deep, and black rocks and small glaciers, over which avalanches were constantly falling with a sullen roar, forbade all attempts to proceed. My object in ascending was chiefly to obtain views and compass-bearings, in which I was generally disappointed: once only I had a magnificent prospect of Kinchinjunga, sweeping down in one unbroken mass of glacier and ice, fully 14,000 feet high, to the head of the Thlonok river, whose upper valley appeared a broad bay of ice; doubtless forming one of the largest glaciers in the Himalaya, and increased by lateral feeders that flow into it from either flank of the valley. The south side of this (the Thlonok) valley is formed by a range from Kinchinjunga, running east to Tukcham, where it terminates: from it rises the beautiful mountain Liklo,[[171]] 22,582 feet high, which, from Dorjiling, appears as a sharp peak, but is here seen to be a jagged crest running north and south. On the north flank of the valley the mountains are more sloping and black, with patches of snow above 15,000 feet, but little anywhere else, except on another beautiful peak (alt. 19,240 feet) marked D3 on the map. This flank is also continuous from Kinchin; it divides Sikkim from Tibet, and runs north-east to the great mountain Chomiomo (which was not visible), the streams from its north flank flowing into the Arun river (in Tibet). A beautiful blue arch of sky spanned all this range, indicating the dry Tibetan climate beyond.