On the 11th of July five coolies arrived with rice: they had been twenty days on the road, and had been obliged to make great detours, the valley being in many places impassable. They brought me a parcel of English letters; and I started up the Lachen on the following day, with renewed spirits and high hopes. The road first crossed the Zemu and the spur beyond, and then ascended the west bank of the Lachen, a furious torrent for five or six miles, during which it descends 1000 feet, in a chasm from which rise lofty black pine-clad crags, topped by snowy mountains, 14,000 to 16,000 feet high. One remarkable mass of rock, on the east bank, is called “Sakya-zong” (or the abode of Sakya, often pronounced Thakya, one of the Boodhist Trinity); at its base a fine cascade falls into the river.
Above 11,000 feet the valley expands remarkably, the mountains recede, become less wooded, and more grassy, while the stream is suddenly less rapid, meandering in a broader bed, and bordered by marshes, covered with Carex, Blysmus, dwarf Tamarisk, and many kinds of yellow and red Pedicularis, both tall and beautiful. There are far fewer rhododendrons here than in the damper Zemu valley at equal elevations, and more Siberian, or dry country types of vegetation, as Astragali of several kinds, Habenaria, Epipactis, dandelion, and a caraway, whose stems (called in Tibet “Gzira”) are much sought for as a condiment.[[178]] The Singtam Soubah and Lachen Phipun received me at the bridge (Samdong), at Tallum, and led me across the river (into Cheen they affirmed) to a pretty green sward, near some gigantic gneiss boulders, where I camped, close by the river, and 11,480 feet above the sea.
[178] Umbelliferæ abound here; with sage, Ranunculus, Anemone, Aconites, Halenia, Gentians, Panax, Euphrasia, speedwell, Prunella vulgaris, thistles, bistort, Parnassia, purple orchis, Prenanthes, and Lactuca. The woody plants of this region are willows, birch, Cotoneaster, maple, three species of Viburnum, three of Spiræa, Vaccinium, Aralia, Deutzia, Philadelphus, rhododendrons, two junipers, silver fir, larch, three honeysuckles, Neillia, and a Pieris, whose white blossoms are so full of honey as to be sweet and palatable.
The village of Tallum consists of a few wretched stone huts, placed in a broad part of the valley, which is swampy, and crossed by several ancient moraines, which descend from the gulleys on the east flank.[[179]] The cottages are from four to six feet high, without windows, and consist of a single apartment, containing neither table, chair, stool, nor bed; the inmates huddle together amid smoke, filth, and darkness, and sleep on a plank; and their only utensils are a bamboo churn, copper, bamboo, and earthenware vessels, for milk, butter, etc.
[179] I have elsewhere noticed that in Sikkim, the ancient moraines above 9000 feet are almost invariably deposited from valleys opening to the westward.
Grassy or stony mountains slope upwards, at an angle of 20°,[[180]] from these flats to 15,000 feet, but no snow is visible, except on Kinchinjhow and Chomiomo, about fifteen miles up the valley. Both these are flat-topped, and dazzlingly white, rising into small peaks, and precipitous on all sides; they are grand, bold, isolated masses, quite unlike the ordinary snowy mountains in form, and far more imposing even than Kinchinjunga, though not above 22,000 feet in elevation.
[180] At Lamteng and up the Zemu the slopes are 40° and 50°, giving a widely different aspect to the valleys.
Herbaceous plants are much more numerous here than in any other part of Sikkim; and sitting at my tent-door, I could, without rising from the ground, gather forty-three plants,[[181]] of which all but two belonged to English genera. In the rich soil about the cottages were crops of dock, shepherd’s-purse, Thlaspi arvense, Cynoglossum of two kinds (one used as a pot-herb), balsams, nettle, Galeopsis, mustard, radish, and turnip. On the neighbouring hills, which I explored up to 15,000 feet, I found many fine plants, partaking more or less of the Siberian type, of which Corydalis, Leguminosæ, Artemisia, and Pedicularis, are familiar instances. I gathered upwards of 200 species, nearly all belonging to north European genera. Twenty-five were woody shrubs above three feet high, and six were ferns;[[182]] sedges were in great profusion, amongst them three of British kinds: seven or eight were Orchideæ, including a fine Cypripedium.
[181] In England thirty is, on the average, the equivalent number of plants, which in favourable localities I have gathered in an equal space. In both cases many are seedlings of short-lived annuals, and in neither is the number a test of the luxuriance of the vegetation; it but shows the power which the different species exert in their struggle to obtain a place.
[182] Cryptogramma crispa, Davallia, two Aspidia, and two Polypodia. I gathered ten at the same elevation, in the damper Zemu valley (see [p. 49,] note). I gathered in this valley a new species of the remarkable European genus Struthiopteris, which has not been found elsewhere in the Himalaya.