Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

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

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Hence I descended to the Kulhait river, on my route back to
Dorjiling, visiting my very hospitable tippling friend, the Kajee of
Lingcham, on the way down: he humbly begged me to get him a pair of
spectacles, for no other object than to look wise, as he had the eyes
of a hawk; he told me that mine drew down universal respect in
Sikkim, and that I had been drawn with them on, in the temple at
Changachelling; and that a pair would not only wonderfully become
him, but afford him the most pleasing recollections of myself.
Happily I had the means of gratifying him, and have since been told
that he wears them on state occasions.

I encamped by the river, 3,160 feet above the sea, amongst figs and
plantains, on a broad terrace of pebbles, boulders and sand, ten feet
above the stream; the rocks in the latter were covered with a red
conferva. The sand on the banks was disposed in layers, alternately
white and red, the white being quartz, and the red pulverised
garnets. The arranging of these sand-bands by the water must be due
to the different specific gravities of the garnet and quartz; the
former being lighter, is lifted by the current on to the surface of
the quartz, and left there when the waters retire.

On the next day I ascended Hee hill, crossed it at an elevation of
7,290 feet, and camped on the opposite side at 6,680 feet, in a dense
forest. The next march was still southward to the little Rungeet
guard-house, below Dorjiling spur, which I reached after a fatiguing
walk amidst torrents of rain. The banks of the little Rungeet river,
which is only 1,670 feet above the sea, are very flat and low, with
broad terraces of pebbles and shingle, upon which are huge gneiss
boulders, fully 200 feet above the stream.

On the 19th of January, I ascended the Tukvor spur to Dorjiling, and
received a most hospitable welcome from my friend Mr. Muller, now
almost the only European inhabitant of the place; Mr. Hodgson having
gone down on a shooting excursion in the Terai, and Dr. Campbell
being on duty on the Bhotan frontier. The place looked what it really
was--wholly deserted. The rain I had experienced in the valley, had
here been snow, and the appearance of the broad snowed patches clear
of trees, and of the many houses without smoke or inhabitant, and the
tall scattered trees with black bark and all but naked branches, was
dismal in the extreme. The effect was heightened by an occasional
Hindoo, who flitted here and there along the road, crouching and
shivering, with white cotton garments and bare legs.

The delight of my Lepcha attendants at finding themselves safely at
home again, knew no bounds; and their parents waited on me with
presents, and other tokens of their goodwill and gratitude. I had no
lack of volunteers for a similar excursion in the following season,
though with their usual fickleness, more than half failed me, long
before the time arrived for putting their zeal to the proof.

------------

I am indebted to Dr. Campbell for the accompanying impression and
description of the seal of the Dhurma Rajah, or sovereign pontiff of
Bhotan, and spiritual head of the whole sect of the Dookpa, or
red-mitred Lama Boodhists. The translations were made by Aden Tchehu
Lama, who accompanied us into Sikkim in 1849, and I believe they are
quite correct. The Tibetan characters run from left to right.

The seal of the Dhurma Rajah is divided into a centre portion and
sixteen rays. In the centre is the word Dookyin, which means "The
Dookpa Creed"; around the "Dookyin" are sixteen similar letters,
meaning "I," or "I am." The sixteen radial compartments contain his
titles and attributes, thus, commencing from the centre erect one,
and passing round from left to right:--

1. I am the Spiritual and Temporal Chief of the Realm.
2. The Defender of the Faith.
3. Equal to Saruswati in learning.
4. Chief of all the Boodhs.
5. Head expounder of the Shasters.
6. Caster out of devils.
7. The most learned in the Holy Laws.
8. An Avatar of God (or, by God's will).
9. Absolver of sins.
10. I am above all the Lamas of the Dookpa Creed.
11. I am of the best of all Religions--the Dookpa.
12. The punisher of unbelievers.
18. Unequalled in expounding the Shasters.
14. Unequalled in holiness and wisdom.
15. The head (or fountain) of all Religious Knowledge.
16. The Enemy of all false Avatars.

CHAPTER XVII.

EXCURSION TO TERAI.

Dispatch collections -- Acorns -- Heat -- Punkabaree -- Bees --
Vegetation -- Haze -- Titalya -- Earthquake -- Proceed to Nepal
frontier -- Terai, geology of -- Physical features of Himalayan
valleys -- Elephants, purchase of, etc. -- Riverbeds -- Mechi river
-- Return to Titalya -- Leave for Teesta -- Climate of plains --
Jeelpigoree -- Cooches -- Alteration in the appearance of country by
fires, etc. -- Grasses -- Bamboos -- Cottages -- Rajah of Cooch Behar
-- Condition of people -- Hooli festival -- Ascend Teesta -- Canoes
-- Cranes -- Forest -- Baikant-pore -- Rummai -- Religion -- Plants
at foot of mountains -- Exit of Teesta -- Canoe voyage down to
Rangamally -- English genera of plants -- Birds -- Beautiful Scenery
-- Botanizing on elephants -- Willow -- Siligoree -- Cross Terai --
Geology -- Iron -- Lohar-ghur -- Coal and sandstone beds -- Mechi
fisherman -- Hailstorm -- Ascent to Khersiong -- To Dorjiling --
Vegetation -- Geology -- Folded quartz-beds -- Spheres of feldspar --
Lime deposits.

Having arranged the collections (amounting to eighty loads) made
during 1848, they were conveyed by coolies to the foot of the hills,
where carts were provided to carry them five days' journey to the
Mahanuddy river, which flows into the Ganges, whence they were
transported by water to Calcutta.

On the 27th of February, I left Dorjiling to join Mr. Hodgson, at
Titalya on the plains. The weather was raw, cold, and threatening:
snow lay here and there at 7000 feet, and all vegetation was very
backward, and wore a wintry garb. The laurels, maples, and
deciduous-leaved oaks, hydrangea and cherry, were leafless, but the
abundance of chesnuts and evergreen oaks, rhododendrons, _Aucuba,
Linonia,_ and other shrubs, kept the forest well clothed. The oaks
had borne a very unusual number of acorns during the last season,
which were now falling, and strewing the road in some places so
abundantly, that it was hardly safe to ride down hill.

The plains of Bengal were all but obscured by a dense haze, partly
owing to a peculiar state of the atmosphere that prevails in the dry
months, and partly to the fires raging in the Terai forest, from
which white wreaths of smoke ascended, stretching obliquely for miles
to the eastward, and filling the air with black particles of
grass-stems, carried 4000 feet aloft by the heated ascending currents
that impinge against the flanks of the mountains.

In the tropical region the air was scented with the white blossoms of
the _Vitex Agnus-castus,_ which grew in profusion by the road-side;
but the forest, which had looked so gigantic on my arrival at the
mountains the previous year, appeared small after the far more lofty
and bulky oaks and pines of the upper regions of the Himalaya.

The evening was sultry and close, the heated surface of the earth
seemed to load the surrounding atmosphere with warm vapours, and the
sensation, as compared with the cool pure air of Dorjiling, was that
of entering a confined tropical harbour after a long sea-voyage.

I slept in the little bungalow of Punkabaree, and was wakened next
morning by sounds to which I had long been a stranger, the voices of
innumerable birds, and the humming of great bees that bore large
holes for their dwellings in the beams and rafters of houses: never
before had I been so forcibly struck with the absence of animal life
in the regions of the upper Himalaya.

Breakfasting early, I pursued my way in the so-called cool of the
morning, but this was neither bright nor fresh; the night having been
hazy, there had been no terrestrial radiation, and the earth was
dusty and parched; while the sun rose through a murky yellowish
atmosphere with ill-defined orb. Thick clouds of smoke pressed upon
the plains, and the faint easterly wind wafted large flakes of grass
charcoal sluggishly through the air.

Vegetation was in great beauty, though past its winter prime. The
tropical forest of India has two flowering seasons; one in summer, of
the majority of plants; and the other in winter, of _Acanthaceae,
Bauhinia, Dillenia, Bombax,_ etc. Of these the former are abundant,
and render the jungle gay with large and delicate white, red, and
purple blossoms. Coarse, ill-favoured vultures wheeled through the
air, languid Bengalees had replaced the active mountaineers,
jackal-like curs of low degree teemed at every village, and ran
howling away from the onslaught of my mountain dog; and the tropics,
with all their beauty of flower and genial warmth, looked as forbidding
and unwholesome as they felt oppressive to a frame that had so long
breathed the fresh mountain air.

Mounted on a stout pony, I enjoyed my scamper of sixteen miles over
the wooded plains and undulating gravelly slopes of the Terai,
intervening between the foot of the mountains and Siligoree bungalow,
where I rested for an hour. In the afternoon I rode on leisurely to
Titalya, sixteen miles further, along the banks of the Mahanuddy, the
atmosphere being so densely hazy, that objects a few miles off were
invisible, and the sun quite concealed, though its light was so
powerful that no part of the sky could be steadily gazed upon.
This state of the air is very curious, and has met with various
attempts at explanation,* [Dr. M'Lelland ("Calcutta Journal of
Natural History," vol. i, p. 52), attributes the haze of the
atmosphere during the north-west winds of this season, wholly to
suspended earthy particles. But the haze is present even in the
calmest weather, and extreme dryness is in all parts of the world
usually accompanied by an obscure horizon. Captain Campbell
("Calcutta Journal of Natural History," vol. ii, p. 44.) also objects
to Dr. M'Clelland's theory, citing those parts of Southern India
which are least likely to be visited by dust-storms, as possessing an
equally hazy atmosphere; and further denies its being influenced by
the hygrometric state of the atmosphere.] all unsatisfactory to me:
it accompanies great heat, dryness, and elasticity of the suspended
vapours, and is not affected by wind. During the afternoon the latter
blew with violence, but being hot and dry, brought no relief to my
still unacclimated frame. My pony alone enjoyed the freedom of the
boundless plains, and the gallop or trot being fatiguing in the heat,
I tried in vain to keep him at a walk; his spirits did not last long,
however, for he flagged after a few days' tropical heat. My little
dog had run thirty miles the day before, exclusive of all the detours
he had made for his own enjoyment, and he flagged so much after
twenty more this day, that I had to take him on my saddle-bow, where,
after licking his hot swollen feet, he fell fast asleep, in spite of
the motion.

After leaving the wooded Terai at Siligoree, trees became scarce, and
clumps of bamboos were the prevalent features; these, with an
occasional banyan, peepul, or betel-nut palm near the villages, were
the only breaks on the distant horizon. A powerfully scented
_Clerodendron,_ and an _0sbeckia_ gay with blossoms like dog-roses,
were abundant; the former especially under trees, where the seeds are
dropped by birds.

At Titalya bungalow, I received a hearty welcome from Mr. Hodgson,
and congratulations on the success of my Nepal journey, which
afforded a theme for many conversations.

In the evening we had three sharp jerking shocks of an earthquake in
quick succession, at 9.8 p.m., appearing to come up from the
southward: they were accompanied by a hollow rumbling sound like that
of a waggon passing over a wooden bridge. The shock was felt strongly
at Dorjiling, and registered by Mr. Muller at 9.10 p.m.: we had
accurately adjusted our watches (chronometers) the previous morning,
and the motion may therefore fairly be assumed to have been
transmitted northwards through the intervening distance of forty
miles, in two minutes. Both Mr. Muller and Mr. Hodgson had noted a
much more severe shock at 6.10 p.m. the previous evening, which I,
who was walking down the mountain, did not experience; this caused a
good deal of damage at Dorjiling, in cracking well-built walls.
Earthquakes are frequent all along the Himalaya, and are felt far in
Tibet; they are, however, most common towards the eastern and western
extremities of India; owing in the former case to the proximity of
the volcanic forces in the bay of Bengal. Cutch and Scinde, as is
well known, have suffered severely on many occasions, and in several
of them the motion has been propagated through Affghanistan and
Little Tibet, to the heart of Central Asia.* [See "Wood's Travels to
the Oxus."]

On the morning of the 1st of March, Dr. Campbell arrived at the
bungalow, from his tour of inspection along the frontier of Bhotan
and the Rungpore district; and we accompanied him hence along the
British and Sikkim frontier, as far west as the Mechi river, which
bounds Nepal on the east.

Terai is a name loosely applied to a tract of country at the very
foot of the Himalaya: it is Persian, and signifies damp. Politically,
the Terai generally belongs to the hill-states beyond it;
geographically, it should appertain to the plains of India; and
geologically, it is a sort of neutral country, being composed neither
of the alluvium of the plains, nor of the rocks of the hills, but for
the most part of alternating beds of sand, gravel, and boulders
brought from the mountains. Botanically it is readily defined as the
region of forest-trees; amongst which the Sal, the most valuable
of Indian timber, is conspicuous in most parts, though not now in
Sikkim, where it has been destroyed. The Terai soil is generally
light, dry, and gravelly (such as the Sal always prefers), and varies
in breadth, from ten miles, along the Sikkim frontier, to thirty and
more on the Nepalese. In the latter country it is called the Morung,
and supplies Sal and Sissoo timber for the Calcutta market, the logs
being floated down the Konki and Cosi rivers to the Ganges.
The gravel-beds extend uninterruptedly upon the plains for fully
twenty miles south of the Sikkim mountains, the gravel becoming
smaller as the distance increases, and large blocks of stone not
being found beyond a few miles from the rocks of the Himalaya itself,
even in the beds of rivers, however large and rapid. Throughout its
breadth this formation is conspicuously cut into flat-topped
terraces, flanking the spurs of the mountains, at elevations varying
from 250 to nearly 1000 feet above the sea. These terraces are of
various breadth and length, the smallest lying uppermost, and the
broadest flanking the rivers below. The isolated hills beyond are
also flat-topped and terraced. This deposit contains no fossils; and
its general appearance and mineral constituents are the only evidence
of its origin, which is no doubt due to a retiring ocean that washed
the base of the Sikkim Himalaya, received the contents of its rivers,
and, wearing away its bluff spurs, spread a talus upwards of 1000
feet thick along its shores. It is not at first sight evident whether
the terracing is due to periodic retirements of the ocean, or to the
levelling effects of rivers that have cut channels through the
deposit. In many places, especially along the banks of the great
streams, the gravel is smaller, obscurely interstratified with sand,
and the flattened pebbles over-lap rudely, in a manner characteristic
of the effects of running water; but such is not the case with the
main body of the deposit, which is unstratified, and much coarser.

The alluvium of the Gangetic valley is both interstratified with the
gravel, and passes into it, and was no doubt deposited in deep water,
whilst the coarser matter* [This, too, is non-fossiliferous, and is
of unknown depth, except at Calcutta, where the sand and clay beds
have been bored through, to the depth of 120 feet, below which the
first pebbles were met with. Whence these pebbles were derived is a
curious problem. The great Himalayan rivers convey pebbles but a very
few miles from the mountains on to the plains of India; and there is
no rock _in situ_ above the surface, within many miles of Calcutta,
in any direction.] was accumulating at the foot of the mountains.

This view is self-evident, and has occurred, I believe, to almost
every observer, at whatever part of the base of the Himalaya he may
have studied this deposit. Its position, above the sandstones of the
Sewalik range in the north-west Himalaya, and those of Sikkim, which
appear to be modern fossiliferous rocks, indicates its being
geologically of recent formation; but it still remains a subject of
the utmost importance to discover the extent and nature of the ocean
to whose agency it is referred. I have elsewhere remarked that the
alluvium of the Gangetic valley may to a great degree be the measure
of the denudation which the Himalaya has suffered along its Indian
watershed. It was, no doubt, during the gradual rise of that chain
from the ocean, that the gravel and alluvium were deposited; and in
the terraces and alternation of these, there is evidence that there
have been many subsidences and elevations of the coast-line, during
which the gravel has suffered greatly from denudation.

I have never looked at the Sikkim Himalaya from the plains without
comparing its bold spurs enclosing sinuous river gorges, to the
weather-beaten front of a mountainous coast; and in following any of
its great rivers, the scenery of its deep valleys no less strikingly
resembles that of such narrow arms of the sea (or fiords) as
characterize every mountainous coast, of whatever geological
formation: such as the west coast of Scotland and Norway, of South
Chili and Fuegia, of New Zealand and Tasmania. There are too in these
Himalayan valleys, at all elevations below 600 feet, terraced
pebble-beds, rising in some cases eighty feet above the rivers, which
I believe could only have been deposited by them when they debouched
into deep water; and both these, and the beds of the rivers, are
strewed, down to 1000 feet, with masses of rock. Such accumulations
and transported blocks are seen on the raised beaches of our narrow
Scottish salt water lochs, exposed by the rising of the land, and
they are yet forming of immense thickness on many coasts by the joint
action of tides and streams.

I have described meeting with ancient moraines in every Himalayan
valley I ascended, at or about 7000 or 8000 feet elevation, proving,
that at one period, the glaciers descended fully so much below the
position they now occupy: this can only be explained by a change of
climate,* [Such a change of temperature, without any depression or
elevation of the mountains, has been thought by Capt. R. Strachey
("Journal of Geological Society"), an able Himalayan observer, to be
the necessary consequence of an ocean at the foot of these mountains;
for the amount of perpetual snow, and consequent descent of the
glaciers, increasing indirectly in proportion to the humidity of the
climate, and the snow-fall, he conjectured that the proximity of the
ocean would prodigiously increase such a deposition of snow.--To me,
this argument appears inconclusive; for the first effect of such a
vast body of water would be to raise the temperature of winter; and
as it is the rain, rather than the sun of summer, which removes the
Sikkim snow, so would an increase of this rain elevate, rather than
depress, the level of perpetual snow.] or by a depression of the
mountain mass equal to 8000 feet, since the formation of these
moraines.

The country about Titalya looks desert, from that want of trees and
cultivation, so characteristic of the upper level throughout this
part of the plains, which is covered with short, poor pasture-grass.
The bungalow stands close to the Mahanuddy, on a low hill, cut into
an escarpment twenty feet high, which exposes a section of river-laid
sand and gravel, alternating with thick beds of rounded pebbles.

Shortly after Dr. Campbell's arrival, the meadows about the bungalow
presented a singular appearance, being dotted over with elephants,
brought for purchase by Government. It was curious to watch the
arrival of these enormous animals, which were visible nearly two
miles across the flat plains; nor less interesting was it to observe
the wonderful docility of these giants of the animal kingdom, often
only guided by naked boys, perched on their necks, scolding,
swearing, and enforcing their orders with the iron goad.
There appeared as many tricks in elephant-dealers as in
horse-jockeys, and of many animals brought, but few were purchased.
Government limits the price to about 75 pounds, and the height to the
shoulder must not be under seven feet, which, incredible as it
appears, may be estimated within a fraction as being three times the
circumference of the forefoot. The pedigree is closely inquired into,
the hoofs are examined for cracks, the teeth for age, and many other
points attended to.

The Sikkim frontier, from the Mahanuddy westward to the Mechi, is
marked out by a row of tall posts. The country is undulating; and
though fully 400 miles from the ocean, and not sixty from the top of
the loftiest mountain on the globe, its average level is not 300 feet
above that of the sea. The upper levels are gravelly, and loosely
covered with scattered thorny jujube bushes, occasionally tenanted by
the _Florican,_ which scours these downs like a bustard. Sometimes a
solitary fig, or a thorny acacia, breaks the horizon, and there are a
few gnarled trees of the scarlet _Butea frondosa._

On our route I had a good opportunity of examining the line of
junction between the alluvial plains that stretch south to the
Ganges, and the gravel deposit flanking the hills. The rivers always
cut broad channels with scarped terraced sides, and their low banks
are very fertile, from the mud annually spread by the ever-shifting
streams that meander within their limits; there are, however, few
shrubs and no trees. The houses, which are very few and scattered,
are built on the gravelly soil above, the lower level being
very malarious.

Thirty miles south of the mountains, numerous isolated flat-topped
hills, formed of stratified gravel and sand with large water-worn
pebbles, rise from 80 to 200 feet above the mean level, which is
about 250 feet above the sea; these, too, have always scarped sides,
and the channels of small streams completely encircle them.

At this season few insects but grasshoppers are to be seen, even
mosquitos being rare. Birds, however, abound, and we noticed the
common sparrow, hoopoe, water-wagtail, skylark, osprey, and
several egrets.

We arrived on the third day at the Mechi river, to the west of which
the Nepal Terai (or Morung) begins, whose belt of Sal forest loomed
on the horizon, so raised by refraction as to be visible as a dark
line, from the distance of many miles. It is, however, very poor, all
the large trees having been removed. We rode for several miles into
it, and found the soil dry and hard, but supporting a prodigious
undergrowth of gigantic harsh grasses that reached to our heads,
though we were mounted on elephants. Besides Sal there was abundance
of _Butea, Diospyros, Terminalia,_ and _Symplocos,_ with the dwarf
_Phoenix_ palm, and occasionally _Cycas._ Tigers, wild elephants, and
the rhinoceros, are said to be found here; but we saw none.

The old and new Mechi rivers are several miles apart, but flow in the
same depression, a low swamp many miles broad, which is grazed at
this season, and cultivated during the rains. The grass is very rich,
partly owing to the moisture of the climate, and partly to the
retiring waters of the rivers; both circumstances being the effects
of proximity to the Himalaya. Hence cattle (buffalos and the common
humped cow of India) are driven from the banks of the Ganges 300
miles to these feeding grounds, for the use of which a trifling tax
is levied on each animal. The cattle are very carelessly herded, and
many are carried off by tigers.

Having returned to Titalya, Mr. Hodgson and I set off in an eastern
direction for the Teesta river, whose embouchure from the mountains
to the plains I was anxious to visit. Though the weather is hot, and
oppressively so in the middle of the day, there are few climates more
delicious than that of these grassy savannahs from December to March.
We always started soon after daybreak on ponies, and enjoyed a twelve
to sixteen miles' gallop in the cool of the morning before breakfast,
which we found prepared on our arrival at a tent sent on ahead the
night before. The road led across an open country, or followed paths
through interminable rice-fields, now dry and dusty. On poor soil a
white-flowered _Leucas_ monopolized the space, like our charlock and
poppy: it was apparently a pest to the agriculturist, covering the
surface in some places like a sprinkling of snow. Sometimes the
river-beds exposed fourteen feet of pure stratified sand, with only
an inch of vegetable soil above.