Natives of the low country, and especially Bengalees, are far from enjoying the climate as Europeans do, being liable to sharp attacks of fever and ague, from which the poorly clad natives are not exempt. It is, however, difficult to estimate the effects of exposure upon the Bengalees, who sleep on the bare and often damp ground, and adhere, with characteristic prejudice, to the attire of a torrid climate, and to a vegetable diet, under skies to which these are least of all adapted.
It must not be supposed that Europeans who have resided in the plains can, on their first arrival, expose themselves with impunity to the cold of these elevations; this was shown in the winter of 1848 and 1849, when troops brought up to Dorjiling were cantoned in newly-built dwellings, on a high exposed ridge 8000 feet above the sea, and lay, insufficiently protected, on a floor of loosely laid planks, exposed to the cold wind, when the ground without was covered with snow. Rheumatisms, sharp febrile attacks, and dysenteries ensued, which were attributed in the public prints to the unhealthy nature of the climate of Dorjiling.
The following summary of hospital admissions affords the best test of the healthiness of the climate, embracing, as the period does, the three most fatal months to European troops in India. Out of a detachment (105 strong) of H.M. 80th Regiment stationed at Dorjiling, in the seven months from January to July inclusive, there were sixty-four admissions to the hospital, or, on the average, 4-1/3 per cent. per month; and only two deaths, both of dysentery. Many of these men had suffered frequently in the plains from acute dysentery and hepatic affections, and many others had aggravated these complaints by excessive drinking, and two were cases of delirium tremens. During the same period, the number of entries at Calcutta or Dinapore would probably have more than trebled this.
CHAPTER V.
View from Mr. Hodgson's of range of snowy mountains — Their extent and elevation — Delusive appearance of elevation — Sinchul, view from and vegetation of — Chumulari — Magnolias, white and purple — Rhododendron Dalhousiae, arboreum and argenteum — Natives of Dorjiling — Lepchas, origin, tradition of flood, morals, dress, arms, ornaments, diet — cups, origin and value — Marriages — Diseases — Burial — Worship and religion — Bijooas — Kampa Rong, or Arratt — Limboos, origin, habits, language, etc. — Moormis — Magras — Mechis — Comparison of customs with those of the natives of Assam, Khasia, etc.
The summer, or rainy season of 1848, was passed at or near Dorjiling, during which period I chiefly occupied myself in forming collections, and in taking meteorological observations. I resided at Mr Hodgson's for the greater part of the time, in consequence of his having given me a hospitable invitation to consider his house my home. The view from his windows is one quite unparalleled for the scenery it embraces, commanding confessedly the grandest known landscape of snowy mountains in the Himalaya, and hence in the world.* [For an account of the geography of these regions, and the relation of the Sikkim Himalaya to Tibet, etc., see Appendix.] Kinchinjunga (forty-five miles distant) is the prominent object, rising 21,000 feet above the level of the observer out of a sea of intervening wooded hills; whilst, on a line with its snows, the eye descends below the horizon, to a narrow gulf 7000 feet deep in the mountains, where the Great Rungeet, white with foam, threads a tropical forest with a silver line.
To the north-west towards Nepal, the snowy peaks of Kubra and Junnoo (respectively 24,005 feet and 25,312 feet) rise over the shoulder of Singalelah; whilst eastward the snowy mountains appear to form an unbroken range, trending north-east to the great mass of Donkia (23,176 feet) and thence south-east by the fingered peaks of Tunkola and the silver cone of Chola, (17,320 feet) gradually sinking into the Bhotan mountains at Gipmoochi (14,509 feet).
The most eloquent descriptions I have read fail to convey to my mind's eye the forms and colours of snowy mountains, or to my imagination the sensations and impressions that rivet my attention to these sublime phenomena when they are present in reality; and I shall not therefore obtrude any attempt of the kind upon my reader. The latter has probably seen the Swiss Alps, which, though barely possessing half the sublimity, extent, or height of the Himalaya, are yet far more beautiful. In either case he is struck with the precision and sharpness of their outlines, and still more with the wonderful play of colours on their snowy flanks, from the glowing hues reflected in orange, gold and ruby, from clouds illumined by the sinking or rising sun, to the ghastly pallor that succeeds with twilight, when the red seems to give place to its complementary colour green. Such dissolving-views elude all attempts at description, they are far too aerial to be chained to the memory, and fade from it so fast as to be gazed upon day after day, with undiminished admiration and pleasure, long after the mountains themselves have lost their sublimity and apparent height.
The actual extent of the snowy range seen from Mr. Hodgson's windows is comprised within an arc of 80 degrees (from north 30 degrees west to north 50 degrees east), or nearly a quarter of the horizon, along which the perpetual snow forms an unbroken girdle or crest of frosted silver; and in winter, when the mountains are covered down to 8000 feet, this white ridge stretches uninterruptedly for more than 160 degrees. No known view is to be compared with this in extent, when the proximity and height of the mountains are considered; for within the 80 degrees above mentioned more than twelve peaks rise above 20,000 feet, and there are none below 15,000 feet, while Kinchin is 28,178, and seven others above 22,000. The nearest perpetual snow is on Nursing, a beautifully sharp conical peak 19,139 feet high, and thirty-two miles distant; the most remote mountain seen is Donkia, 23,176 feet high, and seventy-three miles distant; whilst Kinchin, which forms the principal mass both for height and bulk, is exactly forty-five miles distant.
On first viewing this glorious panorama, the impression produced on the imagination by their prodigious elevation is, that the peaks tower in the air and pierce the clouds, and such are the terms generally used in descriptions of similar alpine scenery; but the observer, if he look again, will find that even the most stupendous occupy a very low position on the horizon, the top of Kinchin itself measuring only 4 degrees 31 minutes above the level of the observer! Donkia again, which is 23,176 feet above the sea, or about 15,700 above Mr. Hodgson's, rises only 1 degrees 55 minutes above the horizon; an angle which is quite inappreciable to the eye, when unaided by instruments.* [These are the apparent angles which I took from Mr. Hodgson's house (alt. 7300 feet) with an excellent theodolite, no deduction being made for refraction.]