I ascended with Campbell to the lake he had visited on the previous day, about 600 or 800 feet above Yeumtso, and 17,500 feet above the sea: it is a mile and a half long, and occupies a large depression between two rounded spurs, being fed by glaciers from Kinchinjhow. The rocks of these spurs were all of red quartz and slates, cut into broad terraces, covered with a thick glacial talus of gneiss and granite in angular pebbles, and evidently spread over the surface when the glacier, now occupying the upper end of the lake, extended over the valley.

The ice on the cliffs and summit of Kinchinjhow was much greener and clearer than that on the south face (opposite Palung); and rows of immense icicles hung from the cliffs. A conferva grew in the waters of the lake, and short, hard tufts of sedge on the banks, but no other plants were to be seen. Brahminee geese, teal, and widgeon, were swimming in the waters, and a beetle (Elaphrus) was coursing over the wet banks; finches and other small birds were numerous, eating the sedge-seeds, and picking up the insects. No view was obtained to the north, owing to the height of the mountains on the north flank of the Lachen.

At noon the temperature rose to 52·5°, and the black-bulb to 104·5°; whilst the north-west dusty wind was so dry, that the dew-point fell to 24·2°.

Chapter XXIV

Ascent of Bhomtso—View of snowy mountains—Chumulari—Arun river—Kiang-lah mountains—Jigatzi—Lhama—Dingcham province of Tibet—Misapplication of term “Plain of Tibet”—Sheep, flocks of—Crops—Probable elevation of Jigatzi—Yarn—Tsampu river—Tame elephants—Wild horses—Dryness of air—Sunset beams—Rocks of Kinchinjhow—Cholamoo lakes—Limestone—Dip and strike of rocks—Effects of great elevation on party—Ascent of Donkia—Moving piles of débris—Cross Donkia pass—Second Visit to Momay Samdong—Hot springs—Descent to Yeumtong—Lachoong—Retardation of vegetation again noticed—Jerked meat—Fish—Lose a thermometer—Lepcha lad sleeps in hot spring—Keadom—Bucklandia—Arrive at Choongtam—Mendicant—Meepo—Lachen-Lachoong river—Wild grape—View from Singtam of Kinchinjunga—Virulent nettle.

In the afternoon we crossed the valley, and ascended Bhomtso, fording the river, whose temperature was 48°. Some stupendous boulders of gneiss from Kinchinjhow are deposited in a broad sandy track on the north bank, by ancient glaciers, which once crossed this valley from Kinchinjhow.

The ascent was alternately over steep rocky slopes, and broad shelf-like flats; many more plants grew here than I had expected, in inconspicuous scattered tufts.[[277]] The rocks were nearly vertical strata of quartz, hornstone, and conglomerate, striking north-west, and dipping south-west 80°. The broad top of the hill was also of quartz, but covered with angular pebbles of the rocks transported from Kinchinjhow. Some clay-stone fragments were stained red with oxide of iron, and covered with Parmelia miniata;[[278]] this, with Borrera, another lichen, which forms stringy masses blown along by the wind, were the only plants, and they are among the most alpine in the world.

[277] Besides those before mentioned, there were Fescue-grass (Festuca ovina of Scotland), a strong-scented silky wormwood (Artemisia), and round tufts of Oxytropis chiliophylla, a kind of Astralagus that inhabits eastern and western Tibet; this alone was green: it formed great circles on the ground, the centre decaying, and the annual shoots growing outwards, and thus constantly enlarging the circle. A woolly Leontopodium, Androsace, and some other plants assumed nearly the same mode of growth. The rest of the vegetation consisted of a Sedum, Nardostachys Jatamansi, Meconopsis horridula, a slender Androsace, Gnaphalium, Stipa, Salvia, Draba, Pedicularis, Potentilla or Sibbaldia, Gentiana and Erigeron alpinus of Scotland. All these grow nearly up to 18,000 feet.

[278] This minute lichen, mentioned at chapter xxxii, is the most Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine in the world; often occurring so abundantly as to colour the rocks of an orange red. This was the case at Bhomtso, and is so also in Cockburn Island in the Antarctic ocean, which it covers so profusely that the rocks look as if brightly painted. See “Ross’s Voyage,” vol. ii. p. 339.

Bhomtso is 18,590 feet above the sea by barometer, and 18,305 by boiling-point: it presented an infinitely more extensive prospect than I had ventured to anticipate, commanding all the most important Sikkim, North Bhotan, and Tibetan mountains, including Kinchinjunga thirty-seven miles to the south-west, and Chumulari thirty-nine miles south-east. Due south, across the sandy valley of the Lachen, Kinchinjhow reared its long wall of glaciers and rugged precipices, 22,000 feet high, and under its cliffs lay the lake to which we had walked in the morning: beyond Kongra Lama were the Thlonok mountains, where I had spent the month of June, with Kinchinjunga in the distance. Westward Chomiomo rose abruptly from the rounded hills we were on, to 22,000 feet elevation, ten miles distant. To the east of Kinchinjhow were the Cholamoo lakes, with the rugged mass of Donkia stretching in cliffs of ice and snow continuously southwards to forked Donkia, which overhung Momay Samdong.