We descended to Yeumtong in a cold drizzle, arriving by sunset; we remained through the following day, hoping to explore the lower glacier on the opposite side of the valley: which, however, the weather entirely prevented. I have before mentioned ([p. 140]) that in descending in autumn from the drier and more sunny rearward Sikkim valleys, the vegetation is found to be most backward in the lowest and dampest regions. On this occasion, I found asters, grasses, polygonums, and other plants that were withered, brown, and seeding at Momay (14,000 to 15,000 feet), at Yeumtong (12,000 feet) green and unripe; and 2000 feet lower still, at Lachoong, the contrast was even more marked. Thus the short backward spring and summer of the Arctic zone is overtaken by an early and forward seed-time and winter: so far as regards the effects of mean temperature, the warmer station is in autumn more backward than the colder. This is everywhere obvious in the prevalent plants of each, and is especially recognisable in the rhododendrons; as the following table shows:—
16,000 to 17,000 feet, R. nivale flowers in July; fruits in September = 2 months.
13,000 to 14,000 feet, R. anthopogon flowers in June; fruits in Oct. = 4 months.
11,000 to 12,000 feet, R. campanulatum flowers in May; fruits in Nov. = 8 months.
8,000 to 9,000 feet, R. argenteum flowers in April; fruits in Dec. = 8 months.
And so it is with many species of Compositæ and Umbelliferæ, and indeed of all natural orders, some of which I have on the same day gathered in ripe fruit at 13,000 to 14,000 feet, and found still in flower at 9000 to 10,000 feet. The brighter skies and more powerful and frequent solar radiation at the greater elevations, account for this apparent inversion of the order of nature.[[296]]
[296] The distribution of the seasons at different elevations in the Himalaya gives rise to some anomalies that have puzzled naturalists. From the middle of October to that of May, vegetation is torpid above 14,000 feet, and indeed almost uniformly covered with snow. From November till the middle of April, vegetation is also torpid above 10,000 feet, except that a few trees and bushes do not ripen all their seeds till December. The three winter months (December, January, and February) are all but dead above 6000 feet, the earliest appearance of spring at Dorjiling (7000 feet) being at the sudden accession of heat in March. From May till August the vegetation at each elevation is (in ascending order) a month behind that below it; 4000 feet being about equal to a month of summer weather in one sense. I mean by this, that the genera and natural orders (and sometimes the species) which flower at 8000 feet in May, are not so forward at 12,000 feet till June, nor at 16,000 feet till July. After August, however, the reverse holds good; then the vegetation is as forward at 16,000 feet as at 8000 feet. By the end of September most of the natural orders and genera have ripened their fruit in the upper zone, though they have flowered as late as July; whereas October is the fruiting month at 12,000, and November below 10,000 feet. Dr. Thomson does not consider that the more sunny climate of the loftier elevations sufficiently accounts for this, and adds the stimulus of cold, which must act by checking the vegetative organs and hastening maturation.
I was disappointed at finding the rhododendron seeds still immature at Yeumtong, for I was doubtful whether the same kinds might be met with at the Chola pass, which I had yet to visit; besides which, their tardy maturation threatened to delay me for an indefinite period in the country. Viburnum and Lonicera, however, were ripe and abundant; the fruits of both are considered poisonous in Europe, but here the black berries of a species of the former (called “Nalum”) are eatable and agreeable; as are those of a Gualtheria, which are pale blue, and called “Kalumbo.” Except these, and the cherry mentioned above, there are no other autumnal fruits above 10,000 feet: brambles, strange as it may appear, do not ascend beyond that elevation in the Sikkim Himalaya, though so abundant below it, both in species and individuals, and though so typical of northern Europe.
At Lachoong we found all the yaks that had been grazing till the end of September at the higher elevations, and the Phipun presented our men with one of a gigantic size, and proportionally old and tough. The Lepchas barbarously slaughtered it with arrows, and feasted on the flesh and entrails, singed and fried the skin, and made soup of the bones, leaving nothing but the horns and hoofs. Having a fine day, they prepared some as jerked meat, cutting it into thin strips, which they dried on the rocks. This (called “Schat-chew,” dried meat) is a very common and favourite food in Tibet, I found it palatable; but on the other hand, the dried saddles of mutton, of which they boast so much, taste so strongly of tallow, that I found it impossible to swallow a morsel of them.[[297]]
[297] Raw dried split fish are abundantly cured (without salt) in Tibet; they are caught in the Yaru and great lakes of Ramchoo, Dobtah, and Yarbru, and are chiefly carp, and allied fish, which attain a large size. It is one of the most remarkable facts in the zoology of Asia, that no trout or salmon inhabits any of the rivers that débouche into the Indian Ocean (the so-called Himalayan trout is a species of carp). This widely distributed natural order of fish (Salmonidæ) is however, found in the Oxus, and in all the rivers of central Asia that flow north and west, and the Salmo orientalis, M’Clelland (“Calcutta Journ. Nat. Hist.” iii., p. 283), was caught by Mr. Griffith (Journals, p. 404) in the Bamean river (north of the Hindo Koosh) which flows into the Oxus, and whose waters are separated by one narrow mountain ridge from those of the feeders of the Indus. The central Himalayan rivers often rise in Tibet from lakes full of fish, but have none (at least during the rains) in that rapid part of their course from 10,000 to 14,000 feet elevation: below that fish abound, but I believe invariably of different species from those found at the sources of the same rivers. The nature of the tropical ocean into which all the Himalayan rivers débouche, is no doubt the proximate cause of the absence of Salmonidæ. Sir John Richardson (Fishes of China Seas, etc., “in Brit. Ass. Rep. etc.”), says that no species of the order has been found in the Chinese or eastern Asiatic seas.
We staid two days at Lachoong, two of my lads being again laid up with fever; one of them had been similarly attacked at the same place nearly two months before: the other lad had been repeatedly ill since June, and at all elevations. Both cases were returns of a fever caught in the low unhealthy valleys some months previously, and excited by exposure and hardship. The vegetation at Lachoong was still beautiful, and the weather mild, though snow had descended to 14,000 feet on Tunkra. Compositæ were abundantly in flower, apples in young fruit, bushes of Cotoneaster covered with scarlet berries, and the brushwood silvery with the feathery heads of Clematis.
I here found that I had lost a thermometer for high temperatures, owing to a hole in the bag in which Cheytoong carried those of my instruments which were in constant use. It had been last used at the hot springs of the Kinchinjhow glacier; and the poor lad was so concerned at his mishap, that he came to me soon afterwards, with his blanket on his back, and a few handfuls of rice in a bag, to make his salaam before setting out to search for it. There was not now a single inhabitant between Lachoong and that dreary spot, and strongly against my wish he started, without a companion. Three days afterwards he overtook us at Keadom, radiant with joy at having found the instrument: he had gone up to the hot springs, and vainly sought around them that evening; then rather than lose the chance of a day-light search on his way back, he had spent the cold October night in the hot water, without fire or shelter, at 16,000 feet above the sea. Next morning his search was again fruitless; and he was returning disconsolate, when he descried the brass case glistening between two planks of the bridge crossing the river at Momay, over which torrent the instrument was suspended. The Lepchas have generally been considered timorous of evil spirits, and especially averse to travelling at night, even in company. However little this gallant lad may have been given to superstition, he was nevertheless a Lepcha, born in a warm region, and had never faced the cold till he became my servant; and it required a stout heart and an honest one, to spend a night in so awful a solitude as that which reigns around the foot of the Kinchinjhow glacier.[[298]]
[298] The fondness of natives for hot springs wherever they occur is very natural and has been noticed by Humboldt, “Pers. Narr.” iv. 195, who states that on Christianity being introduced into Iceland, the natives refused to be baptised in any but the water of the Geysers. I have mentioned at [p. 117] the uses to which the Yeumtong hot springs are put; and the custom of using artificial hot baths is noticed at vol. i., [p. 305.]