Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

J >> J. D. Hooker >> Himalayan Journals (Complete)

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Illustration--TIBET MASTIFF.

These motley groups of Tibetans are singularly picturesque, from the
variety in their parti-coloured dresses, and their odd appearance.
First comes a middle-aged man or woman, driving a little silky black
yak, grunting under his load of 260 lb. of salt, besides pots, pans,
and kettles, stools, churn, and bamboo vessels, keeping up a constant
rattle, and perhaps, buried amongst all, a rosy-cheeked and lipped
baby, sucking a lump of cheese-curd. The main body follow in due
order, and you are soon entangled amidst sheep and goats, each with
its two little bags of salt: beside these, stalks the huge, grave,
bull-headed mastiff, loaded like the rest, his glorious bushy tail
thrown over his back in a majestic sweep, and a thick collar of
scarlet wool round his neck and shoulders, setting off his long silky
coat to the best advantage; he is decidedly the noblest-looking of
the party, especially if a fine and pure black one, for they are
often very ragged, dun-coloured, sorry beasts. He seems rather out of
place, neither guarding nor keeping the party together, but he knows
that neither yaks, sheep, nor goats, require his attention; all are
perfectly tame, so he takes his share of work as salt-carrier by day,
and watches by night as well. The children bring up the rear,
laughing and chatting together; they, too, have their loads, even to
the youngest that can walk alone.

The last village of the Limboos, Taptiatok, is large, and occupies a
remarkable amphitheatre, apparently a lake-bed, in the course of the
Tambur. After proceeding some way through a narrow gorge, along which
the river foamed and roared, the sudden opening out of this broad,
oval expanse, more than a mile long, was very striking: the mountains
rose bare and steep, the west flank terminating in shivered masses of
rock, while that on the right was more undulating, dry, and grassy:
the surface was a flat gravel-bed, through which meandered the
rippling stream, fringed with alder. It was a beautiful spot, the
clear, cool, murmuring river, with its rapids and shallows, forcibly
reminding me of trout-streams in the highlands of Scotland.

Beyond Taptiatok we again crossed the river, and ascended over dry,
grassy, or rocky spurs to Lelyp, the first Bhoteea village; it stands
on a hill fully 1000 feet above the river, and commands a splendid
view up the Yalloong and Kambachen valleys, which open immediately to
the east, and appear as stupendous chasms in the mountains leading to
the perpetual snows of Kinchin-junga. There were about fifty houses
in the village, of wood and thatch, neatly fenced in with wattle, the
ground between being carefully cultivated with radishes, buckwheat,
wheat, and millet. I was surprised to find in one enclosure a fine
healthy plant of _Opuntia,_ in flower, at this latitude and
elevation. A Lama, who is the head man of the place, came out to
greet us, with his family and a whole troop of villagers; they were
the same class of people as I have elsewhere described as Cis-nivean
Tibetans, or Bhoteeas; none had ever before seen an Englishman, and I
fear they formed no flattering opinion from the specimen now
presented to them, as they seemed infinitely amused at my appearance,
and one jolly dame clapped her hands to her sides, and laughed at my
spectacles, till the hills echoed.

_Elaeagnus_ was common here, with _Edgeworthia Gardneri,_* [A plant
allied to _Daphne,_ from whose bark the Nepal paper is manufactured.
It was named after the eminent Indian botanist, brother of the late
Miss Edgeworth.] a beautiful shrub, with globes of waxy,
cowslip-coloured, deliciously scented flowers; also a wild apple,
which bears a small austere fruit, like the Siberian crab. In the bed
of the river rice was still cultivated by Limboos, and subtropical
plants continued. I saw, too, a chameleon and a porcupine, indicating
much warmth, and seeming quite foreign to the heart of these
stupendous mountains. From 6000 to 7000 feet, plants of the temperate
regions blend with the tropical; such as rhododendron, oak, ivy,
geranium, berberry, clematis, and shrubby _Vaccinia,_ which all made
their appearance at Loongtoong, another Bhoteea village. Here, too, I
first saw a praying machine, turned by water; it was enclosed in a
little wooden house, and consisted of an upright cylinder containing
a prayer, and with the words, "Om mani padmi om," (Hail to him of the
Lotus and Jewel) painted on the circumference: it was placed over a
stream, and made to rotate on its axis by a spindle which passed
through the floor of the building into the water, and was terminated
by a wheel.

Above this the road followed the west bank of the river; the latter
was a furious torrent, flowing through a gorge, fringed with a sombre
vegetation, damp, and dripping with moisture, and covered with long
_Usnea_ and pendulous mosses. The road was very rocky and difficult,
sometimes leading along bluff faces of cliffs by wooden steps and
single rotten planks. At 8000 feet I met with pines, whose trunks I
had seen strewing the river for some miles lower down: the first that
occurred was _Abies Brunoniana,_ a beautiful species, which forms a
stately blunt pyramid, with branches spreading like the cedar, but
not so stiff, and drooping gracefully on all sides. It is unknown on
the outer ranges of Sikkim, and in the interior occupies a belt about
1000 feet lower than the silver fir (_A. Webbiana_). Many sub-alpine
plants occur here, as _Lecesteria, Thalictrum,_ rose, thistles,
alder, birch, ferns, berberry, holly, anemone, strawberry, raspberry,
_Gnaphalium, the alpine bamboo, and oaks. The scenery is as grand as
any pictured by Salvator Rosa; a river roaring in sheets of foam,
sombre woods, crags of gneiss, and tier upon tier of lofty mountains
flanked and crested with groves of black firs, terminating in
snow-sprinkled rocky peaks.

Illustration--TAMBUR RIVER AT THE LOWER LIMIT OF PINES.

I now found the temperature getting rapidly cooler, both that of the
air, which here at 8,066 feet fell to 32 degrees in the night, and
that of the river, which was always below 40 degrees. It was in these
narrow valleys only, that I observed the return cold current rushing
down the river-courses during the nights, which were usually
brilliant and very cold, with copious dew: so powerful, indeed, was
the radiation, that the upper blanket of my bed became coated with
moisture, from the rapid abstraction of heat by the frozen tarpaulin
of my tent.

The rivers here are often fringed by flats of shingle, on which grow
magnificent yews and pines; some of the latter were from 120 to 150
feet high, and had been blown down, owing to their scanty hold on the
soil. I measured one, _Abies Brunoniana,_ twenty feet in girth.
Many alpine rhododendrons occur at 9000 feet, with _Astragalis_ and
creeping Tamarisk. Three miles below Wallanchoon the river forks,
being met by the Yangma from the north-east; they are impetuous
torrents of about equal volume; the Tambur especially (here called
the Walloong) is often broken into cascades, and cuts a deep
gorge-like channel.

I arrived at the village of Wallanchoon on the 23rd of November.
It is elevated 10,385 feet, and situated in a fine open part of the
Tambur valley, differing from any part lower down in all its natural
features; being broad, with a rapid but not turbulent stream, very
grassy, and both the base and sides of the flanking mountains covered
with luxuriant dense bushes of rhododendron, rose, berberry and
juniper. Red-legged crows, hawks, wild pigeons, and finches,
abounded. There was but little snow on the mountains around, which
are bare and craggy above, but sloping below. Bleak and forbidding as
the situation of any Himalayan village at 10,000 feet elevation must
be, that of Wallanchoon is rendered the more so from the
comparatively few trees; for though the silver fir and juniper are
both abundant higher up the valley, they have been felled here for
building materials, fuel, and export to Tibet. From the naked limbs
and tall gaunt black trunks of those that remain, stringy masses of
bleached lichen (_Usnea_) many feet long, stream in the wind.
Both men and women seemed fond of decorating their hair with wreaths
of this lichen, which they dye yellow with leaves of _Symplocos._

Illustration--WALLANCHOON VILLAGE.

The village is very large, and occupies a flat on the east bank of
the river, covered with huge boulders: the ascent to it is extremely
steep, probably over an ancient moraine, though I did not recognise
it as such at the time. Cresting this, the valley at once opens, and
I was almost startled with the sudden change from a gloomy gorge to a
broad flat and a populous village of large and good painted wooden
houses, ornamented with hundreds of long poles and vertical flags,
looking like the fleet of some foreign port; while a swarm of
good-natured, intolerably dirty Tibetans, were kotowing to me as
I advanced.

The houses crept up the base of the mountain, on the flank of which
was a very large, long convent; two-storied, and painted scarlet,
with a low black roof, and backed by a grove of dark junipers; while
the hill-sides around were thickly studded with bushes of deep green
rhododendron, scarlet berberry, and withered yellow rose. The village
contained about one hundred houses, irregularly crowded together,
from twenty to forty feet high, and forty to eighty feet long; each
accommodating several families. All were built of upright strong
pine-planks, the interstices of which were filled with yak-dung; and
they sometimes rest on a low foundation wall: the door was generally
at the gable end; it opened with a latch and string; and turned on a
wooden pivot; the only window was a slit closed by a shutter; and the
roofs were very low-pitched, covered with shingles kept down by
stones. The paths were narrow and filthy; and the only public
buildings besides the convents were Manis and Mendongs; of these the
former are square-roofed temples, containing rows of praying-
cylinders placed close together, from four to six feet high,
and gaudily painted; some are turned by hand, and others by water:
the latter are walls ornamented with slabs of clay and mica slate,
with "Om Mani Padmi om" well carved on them in two characters, and
repeated _ad infinitum._

A Tibetan household is very slovenly; the family live higgledy-
piggledy in two or more apartments, the largest of which has an open
fire on the earth, or on a stone if the floor be of wood. The pots
and tea-pot are earthen and copper; and these, with the bamboo
churn for the brick tea, some wooden and metal spoons, bowls, and
platters, comprise all the kitchen utensils.

Every one carries in the breast of his robe a little wooden cup for
daily use; neatly turned from the knotted roots of maple (see Chapter
V). The Tibetan chiefly consumes barley, wheat, or buckwheat
meal--the latter is confined to the poorer classes--with milk,
butter, curd, and parched wheat; fowls, eggs, pork, and yak flesh
when he can afford it, and radishes, a few potatos, legumes, and
turnips in their short season. His drink is a sort of soup made from
brick tea, of which a handful of leaves is churned up with salt,
butter, and soda, then boiled and transferred to the tea-pot, whence
it is poured scalding hot into each cup, which the good woman of the
house keeps incessantly replenishing, and urging you to drain.
Sometimes, but more rarely, the Tibetans make a drink by pouring
boiling water over malt, as the Lepchas do over millet. A pipe of
yellow mild Chinese tobacco generally follows the meal; more often,
however, their tobacco is brought from the plains of India, when it
is of a very inferior description. The pipe carried in the girdle, is
of brass or iron, often with an agate, amber, or bamboo mouth-piece.

Many herds of fine yaks were grazing about Wallanchoon: there were a
few ponies, sheep, goats, fowls, and pigs, but very little
cultivation except turnips, radishes, and potatos. The yak is a very
tame, domestic animal, often handsome, and a true bison in
appearance; it is invaluable to these mountaineers from its strength
and hardiness, accomplishing, at a slow pace, twenty miles a day,
bearing either two bags of salt or rice, or four to six planks of
pinewood slung in pairs along either flank. Their ears are generally
pierced, and ornamented with a tuft of scarlet worsted; they have
large and beautiful eyes, spreading horns, long silky black hair, and
grand bushy tails: black is their prevailing colour, but red, dun,
parti-coloured, and white are common. In winter, the flocks graze
below 8000 feet, on account of the great quantity of snow above that
height; in summer they find pasturage as high as 17,000 feet,
consisting of grass and small tufted _Carices,_ on which they browse
with avidity.

The zobo, or cross between the yak and hill cow (much resembling the
English cow), is but rarely seen in these mountains, though common in
the North West Himalaya. The yak is used as a beast of burden; and
much of the wealth of the people consists in its rich milk and curd,
eaten either fresh or dried, or powdered into a kind of meal.
The hair is spun into ropes, and woven into a covering for their
tents, which is quite pervious to wind and rain;* [The latter is,
however, of little consequence in the dry climate of Tibet.] from the
same material are made the gauze shades for the eyes used in crossing
snowy passes. The bushy tail forms the well-known "chowry" or
fly-flapper of the plains of India; the bones and dung serve for
fuel. The female drops one calf in April; and the young yaks are very
full of gambols, tearing up and down the steep grassy and rocky
slopes: their flesh is delicious, much richer and more juicy than
common veal; that of the old yak is sliced and dried in the sun,
forming jerked meat, which is eaten raw, the scanty proportion of fat
preventing its becoming very rancid, so that I found it palatable
food: it is called _schat-tcheu_ (dried meat). I never observed the
yak to be annoyed by any insects; indeed at the elevation it
inhabits, there are no large diptera, bots, or gadflies to infest it.
It loves steep places, delighting to scramble among rocks, and to sun
its black hide perched on the glacial boulders which strew the
Wallanchoon flat, and on which these beasts always sleep. Their
average value is from two to three pounds, but the price varies with
the season. In autumn, when her calf is killed for food, the mother
will yield no milk, unless the herdsman gives it the calf's foot to
lick, or lays a stuffed skin before it, to fondle, which it does with
eagerness, expressing its satisfaction by short grunts, exactly like
those of a pig, a sound which replaces the low uttered by ordinary
cattle. The yak, though indifferent to ice and snow and to changes of
temperature, cannot endure hunger so long as the sheep, nor pick its
way so well upon stony ground. Neither can it bear damp heat, for
which reason it will not live in summer below 7000 feet, where liver
disease carries it off after a very few years.* [Nevertheless, the
yak seems to have survived the voyage to England. I find in Turner's
"Tibet" (p. 189), that a bull sent by that traveller to Mr. Hastings,
reached England alive, and after suffering from languor, so far
recovered its health and vigour as to become the father of many
calves. Turner does not state by what mother these calves were born,
an important omission, as he adds that all these died but one cow,
which bore a calf by an Indian bull. A painting of the yak (copied
into Turner's book) by Stubbs, the animal painter, may be seen in the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. The artist is
probably a little indebted to description for the appearance of its
hair in a native state, for it is represented much too even in
length, and reaching to too uniform a depth from the flanks.] Lastly,
the yak is ridden, especially by the fat Lamas, who find its shaggy
coat warm, and its paces easy; under these circumstances it is always
led. The wild yak or bison (D'hong) of central Asia, the superb
progenitor of this animal, is the largest native animal of Tibet, in
various parts of which country it is found; and the Tibetans say, in
reference to its size, that the liver is a load for a tame yak.
The Sikkim Dewan gave Dr. Campbell and myself an animated account of
the chase of this animal, which is hunted by large dogs, and shot
with a blunderbuss: it is untameable and horridly fierce, falling
upon you with horns and chest, and if he rasps you with his tongue,
it is so rough as to scrape the flesh from the bones. The horn is
used as a drinking-cup in marriage feasts, and on other grand
occasions. My readers are probably familiar with Messrs. Huc and
Gabet's account of a herd of these animals being frozen fast in the
head-waters of the Yangtsekiang river. There is a noble specimen in
the British Museum not yet set up, and another is preparing for
exhibition in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.

The inhabitants of these frontier districts belong to two very
different tribes, but all are alike called Bhoteeas (from Bhote, the
proper name of Tibet), and have for many centuries been located in
what is--in climate and natural features--a neutral ground between
dry Tibet Proper, and the wet Himalayan gorges. They inhabit a
climate too cold for either the Lepcha or Nepalese, migrating between
6000 and 15,000 feet with the seasons, always accompanied by their
herds. In all respects of appearance, religion, manners, customs, and
language, they are Tibetans and Lama Booddhists, but they pay tax to
the Nepal and Sikkim Rajahs, to whom they render immense service by
keeping up and facilitating the trade in salt, wool, musk, etc.,
which could hardly be conducted without their co-operation. They levy
a small tax on all imports, and trade a little on their own account,
but are generally poor and very indolent. In their alpine summer
quarters they grow scanty crops of wheat, barley, turnips, and
radishes; and at their winter quarters, as at Loongtoong, the better
classes cultivate fine crops of buck-wheat, millet, spinach, etc.;
though seldom enough for their support, as in spring they are obliged
to buy rice from the inhabitants of the lower regions. Equally
dependent on Nepal and Tibet, they very naturally hold themselves
independent of both; and I found that my roving commission from the
Nepal Rajah was not respected, and the guard of Ghorkas held very
cheap.

On my arrival at Wallanchoon, I was conducted to two tents, each
about eight feet long, of yak's hair, striped blue and white, which
had been pitched close to the village for my accommodation. Though
the best that could be provided, and larger than my own, they were
wretched in the extreme, being of so loose a texture that the wind
blew through them: each was formed of two cloths with a long slit
between them, that ran across the top, giving egress to the smoke,
and ingress to the weather: they were supported on two short poles,
kept to the ground by large stones, and fastened by yak's hair ropes.
A fire was smoking vigorously in the centre of one, and some planks
were laid at the end for my bed. A crowd of people soon came to stare
and loll out their tongues at me, my party, and travelling equipage;
though very civil, and only offensive in smell, they were
troublesome, from their eager curiosity to see and handle everything;
so that I had to place a circle of stones round the tents, whilst a
soldier stood by, on the alert to keep them off. A more idle people
are not to be found, except with regard to spinning, which is their
constant occupation, every man and woman carrying a bundle of wool in
the breast of their garments, which is spun by hand with a spindle,
and wound off on two cross-pieces at its lower end. Spinning,
smoking, and tea-drinking are their chief pursuits; and the women
take all the active duties of the dairy and house. They live very
happily together, fighting being almost unknown.

Soon after my arrival I was waited on by the Guobah (or head-man), a
tall, good-looking person, dressed in a purple woollen robe, with
good pearl and coral ear and finger-rings, and a broad ivory ring
over the left thumb,* [A broad ring of this material, agate, or
chalcedony, is a mark of rank here, as amongst the Man-choos, and
throughout Central Asia.] as a guard when using the bow; he wore a
neat thick white felt cap, with the border turned up, and a silk
tassel on the top; this he removed with both hands and held before
him, bowing three times on entering. He was followed by a crowd, some
of whom were his own people, and brought a present of a kid, fowls,
rice, and eggs, and some spikenard roots (_Nardostachys Jatamansi,_ a
species of valerian smelling strongly of patchouli), which is a very
favourite perfume. After paying some compliments, he showed me round
the village. During my walk, I found that I had a good many
objections to overrule before I could proceed to the Wallanchoon
pass, nearly two days' journey to the northward. In the first place,
the Guobah disputed the Nepal rajah's authority to pass me through
his dominions; and besides the natural jealousy of these people when
intruded upon, they have very good reasons for concealing the amount
of revenue they raise from their position, and for keeping up the
delusion that they alone can endure the excessive climate of these
regions, or undergo the hardships and toil of the salt trade. My
passport said nothing about the passes; my people, and especially the
Ghorkas, detested the keen, cold, and cutting wind; at Mywa Guola, I
had been persuaded by the Havildar to put off providing snow-boots
and blankets, on the assurance that I should easily get them at
Walloong, which I now found all but impossible, owing to there being
no bazaar. My provisions were running short, and for the same reason
I had no present hope of replenishing them. All my party had, I
found, reckoned with certainty that I should have had enough of this
elevation and weather by the time I reached Walloong. Some of them
fell sick; the Guobah swore that the passes were full of snow, and
had been impracticable since October; and the Ghorka Havildar
respectfully deposed that he had no orders relative to the pass.
Prompt measures were requisite, so I told all my people that I should
stop the next day at Walloong, and proceed on the following on a
three days' journey to the pass, with or without the Guobah's
permission. To the Ghorka soldiers I said that the present they would
receive, and the character they would take to their commandant,
depended on their carrying out this point, which had been fully
explained before starting. My servants I told that their pay and
reward also depended on their implicit obedience. I took the Guobah
aside and showed him troops of yaks (tethered by halters and toggles
to a long rope stretched between two rocks), which had that morning
arrived laden with salt from the north; I told him it was vain to try
and deceive me; that my passport was ample, and that I should expect
a guide, provisions, and snow-boots the next day; and that every
impediment and every facility should be reported to the rajah.

During my two days' stay at Walloong, the weather was bitterly cold:
as heretofore, the nights and mornings were cloudless, but by noon
the whole sky became murky, the highest temperature (50 degrees)
occurring at 10 a.m. At this season the prospect from this elevation
(10,385 feet), was dreary in the extreme; and the quantity of snow on
the mountains, which was continually increasing, held out a dismal
promise for my chance of exploring lofty uninhabited regions.
All annual and deciduous vegetation had long past, and the lofty
Himalayas are very poor in mosses and lichens, as compared with the
European Alps, and arctic regions in general. The temperature
fluctuated from 22 degrees at sunrise, to 50 degrees at 10 a.m.; the
mean being 35 degrees;* [This gives 1 degrees Fahr. for every 309
feet of elevation, using contemporaneous observations at Calcutta,
and correcting for latitude, etc.] one night it fell to 64 degrees.
Throughout the day, a south wind blew strong and cold up the valley,
and at sunset was replaced by a keen north blast, searching every
corner, and piercing through tent and blankets. Though the sun's rays
were hot for an hour or two in the morning, its genial influence was
never felt in the wind. The air was never very dry, the wet-bulb
thermometer standing during the day 3.75 degrees below the dry, thus
giving a mean dew-point of 30.25 degrees. A thermometer sunk two feet
stood at 44 degrees, fully 9 degrees above the mean temperature of
the air; one exposed to the clear sky, stood, during the day, several
degrees below the air in shade, and, at night, from 9 degrees to
14.75 degrees lower. The black-bulb thermometer, in the sun, rose to
65.75 degrees above the air, indicating upwards of 90 degrees
difference at nearly the warmest part of the day, between contiguous
shaded and sunny exposures. The sky, when cloudless, was generally a
cold blue or steel-grey colour, but at night the stars were large,
and twinkled gloriously. The black-glass photometer indicated 10.521
inches* [On three mornings the maxima occurred at between 9 and 10
a.m. They were, Nov. 24th, 10.509, Nov. 25th, 10.521. On the 25th, at
Tuquoroma, I recorded 10.510. The maximum effect observed at
Dorjiling (7340 feet) was 10.328, and on the plains of India 10.350.
The maximum I ever recorded was in Yangma valley (15,186 feet),
10.572 at 1 p.m.] as the maximum intensity of sunlight; the
temperature of the river close by fell to 32 degrees during the
night, and rose to 37 degrees in the day. In my tent, the temperature
fluctuated with the state of the fire, from 26 degrees at night to 58
degrees when the sun beat on it; but the only choice was between cold
and suffocating smoke.