[185] Cyananthus, a little blue flower allied to Campanula, and one of the most beautiful alpines I know, covered the turfy ground, with Orchis, Pedicularis, Gentian, Potentilla, Geranium, purple and yellow Meconopsis, and the Artemisia of Dorjiling, which ascends to 12,000 feet, and descends to the plains, having a range of 11,500 feet in elevation. Of ferns, Hymenophyllum, Cistopteris, and Cryptogramma crispa ascend thus high.
[186] One of great size, growing in large clumps, is the English Agaricus comans, Fr., and I found it here at 12,500 feet, as also the beautiful genus Crucibulum, which is familiar to us in England, growing on rotten sticks, and resembling a diminutive bird’s nest with eggs in it.
Tungu occupies a very broad valley, at the junction of the Tungu-choo from the east, and the Lachen from the north. The hills slope gently upwards to 16,000 feet, at an average angle of 15°; they are flat and grassy at the base, and no snow is anywhere to be seen.[[187]] A stupendous rock, about fifty feet high, lay in the middle of the valley, broken in two: it may have been detached from a cliff, or have been transported thither as part of an ancient moraine which extends from the mouth of the Tungu-choo valley across that of the Lachen. The appearance and position of this great block, and of the smaller piece lying beside it, rather suggest the idea of the whole mass having fallen perpendicularly from a great height through a crevasse in a glacier, than of its having been hurled from so considerable a distance as from the cliffs on the flanks of the valley: it is faithfully represented in the accompanying woodcut. A few wooden houses were collected near this rock, and several black tents were scattered about. I encamped at an elevation of 12,750 feet, and was waited on by the Lachen Phipun with presents of milk, butter, yak-flesh, and curds; and we were not long before we drowned old enmity in buttered and salted tea.
[187] In the wood-cut the summit of Chomiomo is introduced, as it appears from a few hundred feet above the point of view.
On my arrival I found the villagers in a meadow, all squatted cross-legged in a circle, smoking their brass and iron pipes, drinking tea, and listening to a letter from the Rajah, concerning their treatment of me. Whilst my men were pitching my tent, I gathered forty plants new to me, all of Tartarian types.[[188]] Wheat or barley I was assured had been cultivated at Tungu when it was possessed by Tibetans, and inhabited by a frontier guard, but I saw no appearance of any cultivation. The fact is an important one, as barley requires a mean summer temperature of 48° to come to maturity. According to my observations, the mean temperature of Tungu in July is upwards of 50°, and, by calculation, that of the three summer months, June, July, and August, should be about 46·5°. As, however, I do not know whether these cerealia were grown as productive crops, much stress cannot be laid upon the fact of their having been cultivated, for in a great many parts of Tibet the barley is annually cut green for fodder.
[188] More Siberian plants appeared, as Astragali, Chenopodium, Artemisia, some grasses, new kinds of Pedicularis, Delphinium, and some small Orchids. Three species of Parnassia and six primroses made the turf gay, mixed with saxifrages, Androsace and Campanula. By the cottages was abundance of shepherd’s-purse, Lepidium, and balsams, with dock, Galeopsis, and Cuscuta. Several low dwarf species of honeysuckle formed stunted bushes like heather; and Anisodus, a curious plant allied to Hyoscyamus, whose leaves are greedily eaten by yaks, was very common.
In the evening the sick came to me: their complaints, as usual, being rheumatism, ophthalmia, goitres, cuts, bruises, and poisoning by Tong (Arum), fungi, and other deleterious vegetables. At Tallum I attended an old woman who dressed her ulcers with Plantago (plantain) leaves, a very common Scotch remedy; the ribs being drawn out from the leaf, which is applied fresh: it is rather a strong application.
On the following morning I was awakened by the shrill cries of the Tibetan maidens, calling the yaks to be milked, “Toosh—toosh—toooosh,” in a gradually higher key; to which Toosh seemed supremely indifferent, till quickened in her movements by a stone or stick, levelled with unerring aim at her ribs; these animals were changing their long winter’s wool for sleek hair, and the former hung about them in ragged masses, like tow. Their calves gambolled by their sides, the drollest of animals, like ass-colts in their antics, kicking up their short hind-legs, whisking their bushy tails in the air, rushing up and down the grassy slopes, and climbing like cats to the top of the rocks.