During the winter, when these families repair to Kambajong, in Tibet, the flocks and herds are all stall-fed, with long grass, cut on the marshy banks of the Yaru. Snow is said to fall five feet deep at that place, chiefly after January; and it melts in April.
After tea, I ascended the hills overhanging the Lachen valley, which are very bare and stony; large flocks of sheep were feeding on them, chiefly upon small tufted sedges, allied to the English Carex pilularis, which here forms the greatest part of the pasture: the grass grows mixed with it in small tufts, and is the common Scotch mountain pasture-grass (Festuca ovina).
On the top of these hills, which, for barrenness, reminded me of the descriptions given of the Siberian steppes, I found, at 17,000 feet elevation, several minute arctic plants, with Rhododendron nivale, the most alpine of woody plants. On their sterile slopes grew a curious plant allied to the Cherleria of the Scotch Alps, forming great hemispherical balls on the ground, eight to ten inches across, altogether resembling in habit the curious Balsambog (Bolax glebaria) of the Falkland Islands, which grows in very similar scenes.* [Arenaria rupifraga, Fenzl. This plant is mentioned by Dr. Thomson ("Travels in Tibet," p. 426) as common in Tibet, as far north as the Karakoram, at an elevation between 16,000 and 18,000 feet. In Sikkim it is found at the same level. Specimens of it are exhibited in the Kew Museum. As one instance illustrative of the chaotic state of Indian botany, I may here mention that this little plant, a denizen of such remote and inaccessible parts of the globe, and which has only been known to science a dozen years, bears the burthen of no less than six names in botanical works. This is the Bryomorpha rupifraga of Karelin and Kireloff (enumeration of Soongarian plants), who first described it from specimens gathered in 1841, on the Alatau mountains (east of Lake Aral). In Ledebour's "Flora Rossica" (i. p. 780) it appears as Arenaria (sub-genus Dicranilla) rupifraga, Fenzl, MS. In Decaisne and Cambessede's Plants of Jacquemont's "Voyage aus Indes Orientales," it is described as Flourensia caespitosa, and in the plates of that work it appears as Periandra caespitosa; and lastly, in Endlicher's "Genera Plantarum," Fenzl proposes the long new generic name of Thylacospermum for it. I have carefully compared the Himalayan and Alatau plants, and find no difference between them, except that the flower of the Himalayan one has 4 petals and sepals, 8 stamens, and 2 styles, and that of the Alatau 5 petals and sepals, 10 stamens, and 2-3 styles, characters which are very variable in allied plants. The flowers appear polygamous, as in the Scotch alpine Cherleria, which it much resembles in babit, and to which it is very nearly related in botanical characters.]
A few days afterwards, I again visited Palung, with the view of ascertaining the height of perpetual snow on the south face of Kinchinjhow; unfortunately, bad weather came on before I reached the Tibetans, from whom I obtained a guide in consequence. From this place a ride of about four miles brought me to the source of the Chachoo, in a deep ravine, containing the terminations of several short, abrupt glaciers,* [De Saussure's glaciers of the second order: see "Forbes' Travels in the Alps," p. 79.] and into which were precipitated avalanches of snow and ice. I found it impossible to distinguish the glacial ice from perpetual snow; the larger beds of snow where presenting a flat surface, being generally drifts collected in hollows, or accumulations that have fallen from above: when these accumulations rest on slopes they become converted into ice, and obeying the laws of fluidity, flow downwards as glaciers. I boiled water at the most advantageous position I could select, and obtained an elevation of 16,522 feet.* [Temperature of boiling water, 183 degrees, air 35 degrees.] It was snowing heavily at this time, and we crouched under a gigantic boulder, benumbed with cold. I had fortunately brought a small phial of brandy, which, with hot water from the boiling-apparatus kettle, refreshed us wonderfully.
The spur that divides these plains from the Lachen river, rises close to Kinchinjhow, as a lofty cliff of quartzy gneiss, dipping north-east 30 degrees: this I had noticed from the Kongra Lama side. On this side the dip was also to the northward, and the whole cliff was crossed by cleavage planes, dipping south, and apparently cutting those of the foliation at an angle of about 60 degrees: it is the only decided instance of the kind I met with in Sikkim. I regretted not being able to examine it carefully, but I was prevented by the avalanches of stones and snow which were continually being detached from its surface.* [I extremely regret not having been at this time acquainted with Mr. D. Sharpe's able essays on the foliation, cleavage, etc., of slaty rocks, gneiss, etc., in the Geological Society's Journal (ii. p. 74, and v. p. 111), and still more so with his subsequent papers in the Philosophical Transactions: as I cannot doubt that many of his observations, and in particular those which refer to the great arches in which the folia (commonly called strata) are disposed, would receive ample illustration from a study of the Himalaya. At vol. i. chapter xiii, I have distantly alluded to such an arrangement of the gneiss, etc., into arches, in Sikkim, to which my attention was naturally drawn by the writings of Professor Sedgwick ("Geolog. Soc. Trans.") and Mr. Darwin ("Geological Observations in South America") on these obscure subjects. I may add that wherever I met with the gneiss, mica, schists, and slates, in Sikkim, very near one another, I invariably found that their cleavage and foliation were conformable. This, for example, may be seen in the bed of the great Rungeet, below Dorjiling, where the slates overlie mica schists, and where the latter contain beds of conglomerate. In these volumes I have often used the more familiar term of stratification, for foliation. This arises from my own ideas of the subject not having been clear when the notes were taken.]
The plants found close to the snow were minute primroses, Parnassia, Draba, tufted wormwoods (Artemisia), saxifrages, gentian, small Compositae, grasses, and sedges. Our ponies unconcernedly scraped away the snow with their hoofs, and nibbled the scanty herbage. When I mounted mine, he took the bit between his teeth, and scampered back to Palung, over rocks and hills, through bogs and streams; and though the snow was so blinding that no object could be distinguished, he brought me to the tents with unerring instinct, as straight as an arrow.
Wild animals are few in kind and rare in individuals, at Tungu and elsewhere on this frontier; though there is no lack of cover and herbage. This must be owing to the moist cold atmosphere; and it reminds me that a similar want of animal life is characteristic of those climates at the level of the sea, which I have adduced as bearing a great analogy to the Himalaya, in lacking certain natural orders of plants. Thus, New Zealand and Fuegia possess, the former no land animal but a rat, and the latter very few indeed, and none of any size. Such is also the case in Scotland and Norway. Again, on the damp west coast of Tasmania, quadrupeds are rare; whilst the dry eastern half of the island once swarmed with opossums and kangaroos. A few miles north of Tungu, the sterile and more lofty provinces of Tibet abound in wild horses, antelopes, hares, foxes, marmots, and numerous other quadrupeds; although their altitude, climate, and scanty vegetation are apparently even more unsuited to support such numbers of animals of so large a size than the karroos of South Africa, and the steppes of Siberia and Arctic America, which similarly abound in animal life. The laws which govern the distribution of large quadrupeds seem to be intimately connected with those of climate; and we should have regard to these considerations in our geological speculations, and not draw hasty conclusions from the absence of the remains of large herbivora in formations disclosing a redundant vegetation.
Besides the wild sheep found on these mountains, a species of marmot* [The Lagopus Tibetanus of Hodgson. I procured one that displayed an extraordinary tenacity of life: part of the skull was shot away, and the brain protruded; still it showed the utmost terror at my dog.] ("Kardiepieu" of the Tibetans) sometimes migrates in swarms (like the Lapland "Lemming") from Tibet as far as Tungu. There are few birds but red-legged crows and common ravens. Most of the insects belonged to arctic types, and they were numerous in individuals.* [As Meloe, and some flower-feeding lamellicorns. Of butterflies I saw blues (Polyommatus), marbled whites, Pontia, Colias and Argynnis. A small Curculio was frequent, and I found Scolopendra, ants and earthworms, on sunny exposures as high as 15,500 feet.]
Illustration—TIBET MARMOT.
The Choongtam Lama was at a small temple near Tungu during the whole of my stay, but he would not come to visit me, pretending to be absorbed in his devotions. Passing one day by the temple, I found him catechising two young aspirants for holy orders. He is one of the Dukpa sect, wore his mitre, and was seated cross-legged on the grass with his scriptures on his knees: he put questions to the boys, when he who answered best took the other some yards off, put him down on his hands and knees, threw a cloth over his back, and mounted; then kicking, spurring, and cuffing his steed, he was galloped back to the Lama and kicked off; when the catechising recommenced.