We arrived at Tungu at 9 p.m., my pony not having stumbled once, though the path was rugged, and crossed by many rapid streams. The Soubah’s little shaggy steed had carried his portly frame (fully fifteen stone weight) the whole way out and back, and when he dismounted, it shook itself, snorted, and seemed quite ready for supper.
On the following morning I was occupied in noting and arranging my collections, which consisted of upwards of 200 plants; all gathered above 14,000 feet elevation.[[195]] Letters arrived from Dorjiling with unusual speed, having been only seventeen days on the road: they were full of valuable suggestions and encouragement from my friends Hodgson, Campbell, and Tchebu Lama.
[195] Amongst them the most numerous Natural orders and genera were, Cruciferæ 10; Compositæ 20; Ranunculaceæ 10; Alsineæ 9; Astragali 10; Potentillæ 8; grasses 12; Carices 15; Pedicularis 7; Boragineæ 7.
On the 26th of July the Phipun, who waited on me every morning with milk and butter, and whose civility and attentions were now unremitting, proposed that I should accompany him to an encampment of Tibetans, at the foot of Kinchinjhow. We mounted ponies, and ascended the Tunguchoo eastwards: it was a rapid river for the first thousand feet, flowing in a narrow gorge, between sloping, grassy, and rocky hills, on which large herds of yaks were feeding, tended by women and children, whose black tents were scattered about. The yak-calves left their mothers to run beside our ponies, which became unmanageable, being almost callous to the bit; and the whole party was sometimes careering over the slopes, chased by the grunting herds: in other places, the path was narrow and dangerous, when the sagacious animals proceeded with the utmost gravity and caution. Rounding one rocky spur, my pony stumbled, and pitched me forward: fortunately I lighted on the path.
The rocks were gneiss, with granite veins (strike north-east, dip south-east): they were covered with Ephedra,[[196]] an Onosma which yields a purple dye, Orchis, and species of Androsace; while the slopes were clothed with the spikenard and purple Pedicularis, and the moist grounds with yellow cowslip and long grass. A sudden bend in the valley opened a superb view to the north, of the full front of Kinchinjhow, extending for four or five miles east and west; its perpendicular sides studded with the immense icicles, which are said to have obtained for it the name of “jhow,”—the “bearded” Kinchin. Eastward a jagged spur stretches south, rising into another splendid mountain, called Chango-khang (the Eagle’s crag), from whose flanks descend great glaciers, the sources of the Tunguchoo.
[196] A curious genus of small shrubs allied to pines, that grows in the south of Europe. This species is the European E. vulgaris; it inhabits the driest parts of north-west India, and ascends to 17,000 feet in Tibet, but is not found in the moist intervening countries.
We followed the course of an affluent, called the Chachoo, along whose bed ancient moraines rose in successive ridges: on these I found several other species of European genera.[[197]] Over one of these moraines, 500 feet high, the path ascends to the plains of Palung, an elevated grassy expanse, two miles long and four broad, extending southward from the base of Kinchinjhow. Its surface, though very level for so mountainous a country, is yet varied with open valleys and sloping hills, 500 to 700 feet high: it is bounded on the west by low rounded spurs from Kinchinjhow, that form the flank of the Lachen valley; while on the east it is separated from Chango-khang by the Chachoo, which cuts a deep east and west trench along the base of Kinchinjhow, and then turns south to the Tunguchoo. The course of the Chachoo, where it turns south, is most curious: it meanders in sickle-shaped curves along the marshy bottom of an old lake-bed, with steep shelving sides, 500 to 600 feet deep, and covered with juniper bushes.[[198]] It is fed by the glaciers of Kinchinjhow, and some little lakes to the east.
[197] Delphinium, Hypecoum, Sagina, Gymnandra, Artemisia, Caltha, Dracocephalum, Leontopodium.
[198] These, which grow on an eastern exposure, exist at a higher elevation than any other bushes I have met with.
The mean height of Palung plains is 16,000 feet: they are covered with transported blocks, and I have no doubt their surface has been much modified by glacial action. I was forcibly reminded of them by the slopes of the Wengern Alp, but those of Palung are far more level. Kinchinjhow rises before the spectator, just as the Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eigher Alps do from that magnificent point of view.