Chapter XXII
Leave Lachoong for Tunkra pass—Moraines and their vegetation—Pines of great dimensions—Wild currants—Glaciers—Summit of pass—Elevation—Views—Plants—Winds—Choombi district—Lacheepia rock—Extreme cold—Kinchinjunga—Himalayan grouse—Meteorological observations—Return to Lachoong—Oaks—Ascent to Yeumtong—Flats and debacles—Buried pine-trunks—Perpetual snow—Hot springs—Behaviour of Singtam Soubah—Leave for Momay Samdong—Upper limit of trees—Distribution of plants—Glacial terraces, etc.—Forked Donkia—Moutonnéed rocks—Ascent to Donkia pass—Vegetation—Scenery—Lakes—Tibet—Bhomtso—Arun river—Kiang-lah mountains—Yaru-Tsampu river—Appearance of Tibet—Kambajong—Jigatzi—Kinchinjhow, and Kinchinjunga—Chola range—Deceptive appearance of distant landscape—Perpetual snow—Granite—Temperatures—Pulses—Plants—Tripe de roche—Return to Momay—Dogs and yaks—Birds—Insects—Quadrupeds—Hot springs—Marmots—Kinchinjhow glacier.
The Singtam Soubah being again laid up here from the consequences of leech-bites, I took the opportunity of visiting the Tunkra-lah pass, represented as the most snowy in Sikkim; which I found to be the case. The route lay over the moraines on the north flank of the Tunkrachoo, which are divided by narrow dry gullies,[[223]] and composed of enormous blocks disintegrating into a deep layer of clay. All are clothed with luxuriant herbage and flowering shrubs,[[224]] besides small larches and pines, rhododendrons and maples; with Enkianthus, Pyrus, cherry, Pieris, laurel, and Goughia. The musk-deer inhabits these woods, and at this season I have never seen it higher. Large monkeys are also found on the skirts of the pine-forests, and the Ailurus ochraceus (Hodgs.), a curious long-tailed animal peculiar to the Himalaya, something between a diminutive bear and a squirrel. In the dense and gigantic forest of Abies Brunoniana and silver fir, I measured one of the former trees, and found it twenty-eight feet in girth, and above 120 feet in height. The Abies Webbiana attains thirty-five feet in girth, with a trunk unbranched for forty feet.
[223] These ridges of the moraine, separated by gullies, indicate the progressive retirement of the ancient glacier, after periods of rest. The same phenomena may be seen, on a diminutive scale, in the Swiss Alps, by any one who carefully examines the lateral and often the terminal moraines of any retiring or diminishing glacier, at whose base or flanks are concentric ridges, which are successive deposits.
[224] Ranunculus, Clematis, Thalictrum, Anemone, Aconitum variegatum of Europe, a scandent species, Berberry, Deutzia, Philadelphus, Rose, Honeysuckle, Thistles, Orchis, Habenaria, Fritillaria, Aster, Calimeris, Verbascum thapsus, Pedicularis, Euphrasia, Senecio, Eupatorium, Dipsacus, Euphorbia, Balsam, Hypericum, Gentiana, Halenia, Codonopsis, Polygonum.
The path was narrow and difficult in the wood, and especially along the bed of the stream, where grew ugly trees of larch, eighty feet high, and abundance of a new species of alpine strawberry with oblong fruit. At 11,560 feet elevation, I arrived at an immense rock of gneiss, buried in the forest. Here currant-bushes were plentiful, generally growing on the pine-trunks, in strange association with a small species of Begonia, a hothouse tribe of plants in England. Emerging from the forest, vast old moraines are crossed, in a shallow mountain valley, several miles long and broad, 12,000 feet above the sea, choked with rhododendron shrubs, and nearly encircled by snowy mountains. Magnificent gentians grew here, also Senecio, Corydalis, and the Aconitum luridum (n. sp.), whose root is said to be as virulent as A. ferox and A. Napellus.[[225]] The plants were all fully a month behind those of the Lachen valley at the same elevation. Heavy rain fell in the afternoon, and we halted under some rocks: as I had brought no tent, my bed was placed beneath the shelter of one, near which the rest of the party burrowed. I supped off half a yak’s kidney, an enormous organ in this animal.
[225] The result of Dr. Thomson’s and my examination of the Himplayan aconites (of which there are seven species) is that the one generally known as A. ferox, and which supplies a great deal of the celebrated poison, is the common A. Napellus of Europe.
On the following morning we proceeded up the valley, towards a very steep rocky barrier, through which the river cut a narrow gorge, and beyond which rose lofty snowy mountains: the peak of Tunkra being to our left hand (north). Saxifrages grew here in profuse tufts of golden blossoms, and Chrysosplenium, rushes, mountain-sorrel (Oxyria), and the bladder-headed Saussurea, whose flowers are enclosed in inflated membranous bracts, and smell like putrid meat: there were also splendid primroses, the spikenard valerian, and golden Potentillas.