The night was misty, and though the temperature was 35°, I was miserably cold; for my blankets being laid on the bare ground, the chill seemed to strike from the rock to the very marrow of my bones. In the morning the fog hung till sunrise, when it rose majestically from all the mountain-tops; but the view obtained was transient, for in less than an hour the dense woolly banks of fog which choked the valleys ascended like a curtain to the warmed atmosphere above, and slowly threw a veil over the landscape. I waited till the last streak of snow was shut out from my view, when I descended, to breakfast on Himalayan grouse (Tetrao-perdix nivicola), a small gregarious bird which inhabits the loftiest stony mountains, and utters a short cry of “Quiok, quiok;” in character and appearance it is intermediate between grouse and partridge, and is good eating, though tough.
Hoping to obtain another view, which might enable me to correct the bearings taken that morning, I was tempted to spend a second night in the open air at Lacheepia, passing the day botanizing[[228]] in the vicinity, and taking observations of the barometer and wet-bulb: I also boiled three thermometers by turns, noting the grave errors likely to attend observations of this instrument for elevation.[[229]] Little rain fell during the day, but it was heavy at night, though there was fortunately no wind; and I made a more comfortable bed with tufts of juniper brought up from below. Our fire was principally of wet rhododendron wood, with masses of the aromatic dwarf species, which, being full of resinous glands, blazed with fury. Next day, after a very transient glimpse of the Kinchinjunga snows, I descended to Lachoong, where I remained for some days botanizing. During my stay I was several times awakened by all the noises and accompaniments of a night-attack or alarm; screaming voices, groans, shouts, and ejaculations, the beating of drums and firing of guns, and flambeaux of pine-wood gleaming amongst the trees, and flitting from house to house. The cause, I was informed, was the, presence of a demon, who required exorcisement, and who generally managed to make the villagers remember his visit, by their missing various articles after the turmoil made to drive him away. The custom of driving out demons in the above manner is constantly practised by the Lamas in Tibet: MM. Huc and Gabet give a graphic account of such an operation during their stay at Kounboum.
[228] Scarcely a grass, and no Astragali, grow on these stony and snowy slopes: and the smallest heath-like Andromeda, a still smaller Menziesia (an erotic genus, previously unknown in the Himalaya) and a prostrate willow, are the only woody-stemmed plants above 15,000 feet.
[229] These will be more particularly alluded to in the Appendix, where will be found a comparison of elevations, deduced from boiling point and from barometric observations. The height of Lacheepia is 14,912 feet by boiling-point, and 15,262 feet by barometer.
On the 29th of August I left Lachoong and proceeded up the valley. The road ran along a terrace, covered with long grass, and bounded by lofty banks of unstratified gravel and sand, and passed through beautiful groves of green pines, rich in plants. No oak nor chesnut ascends above 9000 feet here or elsewhere in the interior of Sikkim, where they are replaced by a species of hazel (Corylus); in the North Himalaya, on the other hand, an oak (Quercus semecarpifolia, see vol. i., [p. 187]) is amongst the most alpine trees, and the nut is a different species, more resembling the European. On the outer Sikkim ranges oaks (Q. annulata?) ascend to 10,000 feet, and there is no hazel. Above the fork, the valley contracts extremely, and its bed is covered with moraines and landslips, which often bury the larches and pines. Marshes occur here and there, full of the sweet-scented Hierochlœ grass, the Scotch Thalictrum alpinum, and an Eriocaulon, which ascends to 10,000 feet. The old moraines were very difficult to cross, and on one I found a barricade, which had been erected to deceive me regarding the frontier, had I chosen this route instead of the Lachen one, in May.
Broad flats clothed with rhododendron, alternate with others covered with mud, boulders, and gravel, which had flowed down from the gorges on the west, and which still contained trees, inclined in all directions, and buried up to their branches; some of these débâcles were 400 yards across, and sloped at an angle of 2° to 3°, bearing on their surfaces blocks fifteen yards in diameter.[[230]] They seem to subside materially, as I perceived they had left marks many feet higher on the tree-trunks. Such débâcles must often bury standing forests in a very favourable material, climate, and position for becoming fossilized.
[230] None were to be compared in size and extent with that at Bex, at the mouth of the Rhone valley.
On the 30th of August I arrived at Yeumtong, a small summer cattle-station, on a flat by the Lachoong, 11,920 feet above the sea; the general features of which closely resemble those of the narrow Swiss valleys. The west flank is lofty and precipitous, with narrow gullies still retaining the winter’s snow, at 12,500 feet; the east gradually slopes up to the two snowy domes seen from Lachoong; the bed of the valley is alternately a flat lake-bed, in which the river meanders at the rate of three and a half miles an hour, and sudden descents, cumbered with old moraines, over which it rushes in sheets of Loam. Silver-firs ascend nearly to 13,000 feet, where they are replaced by large junipers, sixty feet high: up the valley Chango Khang is seen, with a superb glacier descending to about 14,000 feet on its south flank. Enormous masses of rock were continually precipitated from the west side, close to the shed in which I had taken up my quarters, keeping my people in constant alarm, and causing a great commotion among the yaks, dogs, and ponies. On the opposite side of the river is a deep gorge; in which an immense glacier descends lower than any I have seen in Sikkim. I made several attempts to reach it by the gully of its discharging stream, but was always foiled by the rocks and dense jungle of pines, rhododendron, and dwarf holly.
The snow-banks on the face of the dome-shaped mountain appearing favourable for ascertaining the position of the level of perpetual snow, I ascended to them on the 6th of September, and found the mean elevation along an even, continuous, and gradual slope, with a full south-west exposure, to be 15,985 feet by barometer, and 15,816 feet by boiling-point. These beds of snow, however broad and convex, cannot nevertheless be distinguished from glaciers: they occupy, it is true, mountain slopes, and do not fill hollows (like glaciers commonly so called), but they display the ribboned structure of ice, and being viscous fluids, descend at a rate and to a distance depending on the slope, and on the amount of annual accumulation behind. Their termination must therefore be far below that point at which all the snow that falls melts, which is the theoretical line of perpetual snow. Before returning I attempted to proceed northwards to the great glacier, hoping to descend by its lateral moraine, but a heavy snow-storm drove me down to Yeumtong.
Some hot-springs burst from the bank of the Lachen a mile or so below the village: they are used as baths, the patient remaining three days at a time in them, only retiring to eat in a little shed close by. The discharge amounts to a few gallons per minute; the temperature at the source is 112·6°, and 106° in the bath.[[231]] The water has a slightly saline taste; it is colourless, but emits bubbles of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, blackening silver. A cold spring (temperature 42°) emerged close by, and the Lachoong not ten yards off, was 47° to 50°. A conferva grows in the hot water, and the garnets are worn out of the gneiss rock exposed to its action.