Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

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

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On the following morning we proceeded up the valley, towards a very
steep rocky barrier, through which the river cut a narrow gorge, and
beyond which rose lofty snowy mountains: the peak of Tunkra being to
our left hand (north). Saxifrages grew here in profuse tufts of
golden blossoms, and _Chrysosplenium,_ rushes, mountain-sorrel
(_Oxyria_), and the bladder-headed _Saussurea,_ whose flowers are
enclosed in inflated membranous bracts, and smell like putrid meat:
there were also splendid primroses, the spikenard valerian, and
golden Potentillas.

The ascent was steep and difficult, up a stony valley bounded by
precipices; in this the river flowed in a north-west direction, and
we were obliged to wade along it, though its waters were bitterly
cold, the temperature being 39 degrees. At 15,000 feet we passed from
great snowbeds to the surface of a glacier, partly an accumulation of
snow, increased by lateral glaciers: its slope was very gentle for
several miles; the surface was eroded by rain, and very rough, whilst
those of the lateral glaciers were ribboned, crevassed, and often
conspicuously marked with dirt-bands.

A gently sloping saddle, bare of snow, which succeeds the glacier,
forms the top of the Tunkra pass; it unites two snowy mountains, and
opens on the great valley of the Machoo, which flows in a part of
Tibet between Sikkim and Bhotan; its height is 16,083 feet above the
sea by barometer, and 16,137 feet by boiling-point. Nothing can
be more different than the two slopes of this pass; that by which I
had come presented a gentle snowy acclivity, bounded by precipitous
mountains; while that which opened before me was a steep, rocky,
broad, grassy valley, where not a particle of snow was to be seen,
and yaks were feeding near a small lake not 1000 feet down. Nor were
snowy mountains visible anywhere in this direction, except far to the
south-east, in Bhotan. This remarkable difference of climate is due
to the southerly wind which ascends the Tibetan or Machoo valley
being drained by intervening mountains before reaching this pass,
whilst the Sikkim current brings abundant vapours up the Teesta and
Lachoong valleys.

Chumulari lies to the E.N.E. of the Tunkra pass, and is only
twenty-six miles distant, but not seen; Phari is two marches off, in
an easterly direction, and Choombi one to the south-east. Choombi is
the general name given to a large Tibetan province that embraces the
head of the Machoo river, and includes Phari, Eusa, Choombi, and
about thirteen other villages, corresponding to as many districts,
that contain from under a dozen to 300 houses each, varying with the
season and state of trade. The latter is considerable, Phari being,
next to Dorjiling, the greatest Tibetan, Bhotan, Sikkim, and Indian
entrepot along the whole Himalaya east of Nepal. The general form of
Choombi valley is triangular, the broader end northwards: it is
bounded by the Chola range on the west from Donkia to Gipmoochi, and
by the Kamphee or Chakoong range to the east; which is, I believe,
continuous with Chumulari. These meridional ranges approximate to the
southward, so as to form a natural boundary to Choombi. The Machoo
river, rising from Chumulari, flows through the Choombi district, and
enters Bhotan at a large mart called Rinchingoong, whence it flows to
the plains of India, where it is called at Couch-Behar, the Torsha,
or, as some say, the Godadda, and falls into the Burrampooter.

The Choombi district is elevated, for the only cultivation is a
summer or alpine one, neither rice, maize, nor millet being grown
there: it is also dry, for the great height of the Bhotan mountains
and the form of the Machou valley cut off the rains, and there is no
dense forest. It is very mountainous, all carriage being on men's and
yaks' backs, and is populous for this part of the country, the
inhabitants being estimated at 3000, in the trading season, when many
families from Tibet and Bhotan erect booths at Phari.

A civil officer at Phari collects the revenue under the Lhassan
authorities, and there is also a Tibetan fort, an officer, and guard.
The inhabitants of this district more resemble the Bhotanese than
Tibetans, and are a thievish set, finding a refuge under the
Paro-Pilo of Bhotan,* [There was once a large monastery, called
Kazioo Goompa, at Choombi, with upwards of one hundred Lamas.
During a struggle between the Sikkim and Bhotan monks for superiority
in it, the abbot died. His avatar reappeared in two places at once!
in Bhotan as a relative of the Paro-Pilo himself, and in Sikkim as a
brother of the powerful Gangtok Kajee. Their disputes were referred
to the Dalai Lama, who pronounced for Sikkim. This was not to be
disputed by the Pilo, who, however, plundered the Goompa of its
silver, gold, and books, leaving nothing but the bare walls for the
successful Lama! The Lhassan authorities made no attempt to obtain
restitution, and the monastery has been consequently neglected.] who
taxes the refugees according to the estimate he forms of their
plunder. The Tibetans seldom pursue the culprits, as the Lhassan
government avoids all interference south of their own frontier.

From Choombi to Lhassa is fifteen days' long journeys for a man
mounted on a stout mule; all the rice passing through Phari is
monopolised there for the Chinese troops at Lhassa. The grazing for
yaks and small cattle is excellent in Choombi, and the _Pinus
excelsa_ is said to grow abundantly there, though unknown in Sikkim,
but I have not heard of any other peculiarity in its productions.

Very few plants grew amongst the stones at the top of the Tunkra
pass, and those few were mostly quite different from those of Palung
and Kongra Lama. A pink-floweerd _Arenaria,_ two kinds of
_Corydalis,_ the cottony _Saussurea,_ and diminutive primroses, were
the most conspicuous.* [The only others were _Leontopodium, Sedum,_
Saxifrage, _Ramunculus hyperboreus, Ligularia,_ two species of
_Polygonum,_ a _Trichostomum, Stereocaulon,_ and _Lecidea
geographica,_ not one grass or sedge.] The wind was variable, blowing
alternately up both valleys, bringing much snow when it blew from the
Teesta, though deflected to a north-west breeze; when, on the
contrary, it blew from Tibet, it was, though southerly, dry.
Clouds obscured all distant view. The temperature varied between noon
and 1.30 p.m. from 39 degrees to 40.5 degrees, the air being
extremely damp.

Returning to the foot of the glacier, I took up my quarters for two
days under an enormous rock overlooking the broad flat valley in
which I had spent the previous night, and directly fronting Tunkra
mountain, which bore north about five miles distant. This rock was
sixty to eighty feet high, and 15,250 feet above the sea; it was of
gneiss, and was placed on the top of a bleak ridge, facing the north;
no shrub or bush being near it. The gentle slope outwards of the rock
afforded the only shelter, and a more utterly desolate place than
Lacheepia, as it is called, I never laid my unhoused head in.
It commanded an incomparable view due west across the Lachoong
and Lachen valleys, of the whole group of Kinchinjunga snows, from
Tibet southwards, and as such was a most valuable position for
geographical purposes.

The night was misty, and though the temperature was 35 degrees, I was
miserably cold; for my blankets being laid on the bare ground, the
chill seemed to strike from the rock to the very marrow of my bones.
In the morning the fog hung till sunrise, when it rose majestically
from all the mountain-tops; but the view obtained was transient, for
in less than an hour the dense woolly banks of fog which choked the
valleys ascended like a curtain to the warmed atmosphere above, and
slowly threw a veil over the landscape. I waited till the last streak
of snow was shut out from my view, when I descended, to breakfast on
Himalayan grouse (_Tetrao-perdix nivicola_), a small gregarious bird
which inhabits the loftiest stony mountains, and utters a short cry
of "Quiok, quiok;" in character and appearance it is intermediate
between grouse and partridge, and is good eating, though tough.

Hoping to obtain another view, which might enable me to correct the
bearings taken that morning, I was tempted to spend a second night in
the open air at Lacheepia, passing the day botanizing* [Scarcely a
grass, and no _Astragali,_ grow on these stony and snowy slopes: and
the smallest heath-like _Andromeda,_ a still smaller _Menziesia_ (an
erotic genus, previously unknown in the Himalaya) and a prostrate
willow, are the only woody-stemmed plants above 15,000 feet.] in the
vicinity, and taking observations of the barometer and wet-bulb:
I also boiled three thermometers by turns, noting the grave errors
likely to attend observations of this instrument for elevation.*
[These will be more particularly alluded to in the Appendix, where
will be found a comparison of elevations, deduced from boiling point
and from barometric observations. The height of Lacheepia is 14,912
feet by boiling-point, and 15,262 feet by barometer.] Little rain
fell during the day, but it was heavy at night, though there was
fortunately no wind; and I made a more comfortable bed with tufts of
juniper brought up from below. Our fire was principally of wet
rhododendron wood, with masses of the aromatic dwarf species, which,
being full of resinous glands, blazed with fury. Next day, after a
very transient glimpse of the Kinchinjunga snows, I descended to
Lachoong, where I remained for some days botanizing. During my stay I
was several times awakened by all the noises and accompaniments of a
night-attack or alarm; screaming voices, groans, shouts, and
ejaculations, the beating of drums and firing of guns, and flambeaux
of pine-wood gleaming amongst the trees, and flitting from house to
house. The cause, I was informed, was the, presence of a demon, who
required exorcisement, and who generally managed to make the
villagers remember his visit, by their missing various articles after
the turmoil made to drive him away. The custom of driving out demons
in the above manner is constantly practised by the Lamas in Tibet:
MM. Huc and Gabet give a graphic account of such an operation during
their stay at Kounboum.

On the 29th of August I left Lachoong and proceeded up the valley.
The road ran along a terrace, covered with long grass, and bounded by
lofty banks of unstratified gravel and sand, and passed through
beautiful groves of green pines, rich in plants. No oak nor chesnut
ascends above 9000 feet here or elsewhere in the interior of Sikkim,
where they are replaced by a species of hazel (_Corylus_); in the
North Himalaya, on the other hand, an oak (_Quercus semecarpifolia,_
see vol. i., chapter viii) is amongst the most alpine trees, and the
nut is a different species, more resembling the European. On the
outer Sikkim ranges oaks (_Q. annulata?_) ascend to 10,000 feet, and
there is no hazel. Above the fork, the valley contracts extremely,
and its bed is covered with moraines and landslips, which often bury
the larches and pines. Marshes occur here and there, full of the
sweet-scented Hierochloe grass, the Scotch _Thalictrum alpinum,_ and
an _Eriocaulon,_ which ascends to 10,000 feet. The old moraines were
very difficult to cross, and on one I found a barricade, which had
been erected to deceive me regarding the frontier, had I chosen this
route instead of the Lachen one, in May.

Broad flats clothed with rhododendron, alternate with others covered
with mud, boulders, and gravel, which had flowed down from the gorges
on the west, and which still contained trees, inclined in all
directions, and buried up to their branches; some of these debacles
were 400 yards across, and sloped at an angle of 2 degrees to 3
degrees, bearing on their surfaces blocks fifteen yards in diameter.*
[None were to be compared in size and extent with that at Bex, at the
mouth of the Rhone valley.] They seem to subside materially, as I
perceived they had left marks many feet higher on the tree-trunks.
Such debacles must often bury standing forests in a very favourable
material, climate, and position for becoming fossilized.

On the 30th of August I arrived at Yeumtong, a small summer
cattle-station, on a flat by the Lachoong, 11,920 feet above the sea;
the general features of which closely resemble those of the narrow
Swiss valleys. The west flank is lofty and precipitous, with narrow
gullies still retaining the winter's snow, at 12,500 feet; the east
gradually slopes up to the two snowy domes seen from Lachoong; the
bed of the valley is alternately a flat lake-bed, in which the river
meanders at the rate of three and a half miles an hour, and sudden
descents, cumbered with old moraines, over which it rushes in sheets
of Loam. Silver-firs ascend nearly to 13,000 feet, where they are
replaced by large junipers, sixty feet high: up the valley Chango
Khang is seen, with a superb glacier descending to about 14,000 feet
on its south
flank. Enormous masses of rock were continually precipitated from the
west side, close to the shed in which I had taken up my quarters,
keeping my people in constant alarm, and causing a great commotion
among the yaks, dogs, and ponies. On the opposite side of the river
is a deep gorge; in which an immense glacier descends lower than any
I have seen in Sikkim. I made several attempts to reach it by the
gully of its discharging stream, but was always foiled by the rocks
and dense jungle of pines, rhododendron, and dwarf holly.

The snow-banks on the face of the dome-shaped mountain appearing
favourable for ascertaining the position of the level of perpetual
snow, I ascended to them on the 6th of September, and found the mean
elevation along an even, continuous, and gradual slope, with a full
south-west exposure, to be 15,985 feet by barometer, and 15,816 feet
by boiling-point. These beds of snow, however broad and convex,
cannot nevertheless be distinguished from glaciers: they occupy, it
is true, mountain slopes, and do not fill hollows (like glaciers
commonly so called), but they display the ribboned structure of ice,
and being viscous fluids, descend at a rate and to a distance
depending on the slope, and on the amount of annual accumulation
behind. Their termination must therefore be far below that point at
which all the snow that falls melts, which is the theoretical line of
perpetual snow. Before returning I attempted to proceed northwards to
the great glacier, hoping to descend by its lateral moraine, but a
heavy snow-storm drove me down to Yeumtong.

Some hot-springs burst from the bank of the Lachen a mile or so below
the village: they are used as baths, the patient remaining three days
at a time in them, only retiring to eat in a little shed close by.
The discharge amounts to a few gallons per minute; the temperature at
the source is 112.6 degrees, and 106 degrees in the bath.* [This
water boiled at 191.6 degrees, the same at which snow-water and that
of the river did; giving an elevation of 11,730 feet. Observations on
the mineral constituents of the water will be found in the Appendix.]
The water has a slightly saline taste; it is colourless, but emits
bubbles of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, blackening silver. A cold
spring (temperature 42 degrees) emerged close by, and the Lachoong
not ten yards off, was 47 degrees to 50 degrees. A conferva grows in
the hot water, and the garnets are worn out of the gneiss rock
exposed to its action.

The Singtam Soubah had been very sulky since leaving Choongtam, and I
could scarcely get a drop of milk or a slice of curd here. I had to
take him to task severely for sanctioning the flogging of one of my
men; a huntsman, who had offered me his services at Choongtam, and
who was a civil, industrious fellow, though he had procured me little
besides a huge monkey, which had nearly bitten off the head of his
best dog. I had made a point of consulting the Soubah before hiring
him, for fear of accidents; but this did not screen him from the
jealousy of the Choongtam Lama, who twice flogged him in the Goompa
with rattans (with the Soubah's consent), alleging that he had
quitted his service for mine. My people knew of this, but were afraid
to tell me, which the poor fellow did himself.

The Lachoong Phipun visited me on the 7tb of September: he had
officiously been in Tibet to hear what the Tibetan people would say
to my going to Donkia, and finding them supremely indifferent,
returned to be my guide. A month's provision for ten men having
arrived from Dorjiling, I left Yeumtong the following day for Momay
Samdong, the loftiest yak grazing station in Sikkim (Palung being too
cold for yaks), and within a day's journey of the Donkia pass.

The valley remains almost level for several miles, the road
continuing along the east bank of the Lachen. Shoots of stones
descend from the ravines, all of a white fine-grained granite,
stained red with a minute conferva, which has been taken by Himalayan
travellers for red snow;* [Red snow was never found in the Antarctic
regions during Sir James Ross's South Polar voyage; nor do I know any
authentic record of its having been seen in the Himalaya.] a
phenomenon I never saw in Sikkim.

At a fork of the valley several miles above Yeumtong, and below the
great glacier of Chango Khang, the ancient moraines are prodigious,
much exceeding any I have elsewhere seen, both in extent, in the size
of the boulders, and in the height to which the latter are piled on
one another. Many boulders I measured were twenty yards across, and
some even forty; and the chaotic scene they presented baffles all
description: they were scantily clothed with stunted silver firs.

Beyond this, the path crosses the river, and ascends rapidly over a
mile of steeply sloping landslip, composed of angular fragments of
granite, that are constantly falling from above, and are extremely
dangerous. At 14,000 feet, trees and shrubs cease, willow and
honeysuckle being the last; and thence onward the valley is bleak,
open, and stony, with lofty rocky mountains on either side. The south
wind brought a cold drizzling rain, which numbed us, and two of the
lads who had last come up from Dorjiling were seized with a remittent
fever, originally contracted in the hot valleys; luckily we found
some cattle-sheds, in which I left them, with two men to attend
on them.

Momay Samdong is situated in a broad part of the Lachoong valley,
where three streams meet; it is on the west of Chango Khang, and is
six miles south-east of Kinchinjhow, and seven south-west of Donkia:
it is in the same latitude as Palung, but scarcely so lofty. The mean
of fifty-six barometrical observations contemporaneous with Calcutta
makes it 15,362 feet above the sea; nearly the elevation of Lacheepia
(near the Tunkra pass), from which, however, its scenery and
vegetation entirely differ.

I pitched my tent close to a little shed, at the gently sloping base
of a mountain that divided the Lachoong river from a western
tributary. It was a wild and most exposed spot: long stony mountains,
grassy on the base near the river; distant snowy peaks, stupendous
precipices, moraines, glaciers, transported boulders, and rocks
rounded by glacial action, formed the dismal landscape which
everywhere met the view. There was not a bush six inches high, and
the only approach to woody plants were minute creeping willows and
dwarf rhododendrons, with a very few prostrate junipers
and _Ephedra._

The base of the spur was cut into broad flat terraces, composed of
unstratified sand, pebbles, and boulders; the remains, doubtless, of
an enormously thick glacial deposit. The terracing is as difficult to
be accounted for in this valley as in that of Yangma (East Nepal);
both valleys being far too broad, and descending too rapidly to admit
of the hypothesis of their having been blocked up in the lower part,
and the upper filled with large lakes.* [The formation of small
lakes, however, between moraines and the sides of the valleys they
occupy, or between two successively formed moraines (as I have
elsewhere mentioned), will account for very extensive terraced areas
of this kind; and it must be borne in mind that when the Momay valley
was filled with ice, the breadth of its glacier at this point must
have been twelve miles, and it must have extended east and west from
Chango Khang across the main valley, to beyond Donkia. Still the
great moraines are wanting at this particular point, and though
atmospheric action and the rivers have removed perhaps 200 feet of
glacial shingle, they can hardly have destroyed a moraine of rocks,
large enough to block up the valley.] Another tributary falls into
the Lachoong at Momay, which leads eastwards up to an enormous
glacier that descends from Donkia. Snowy mountains rise nearly all
round it: those on its south and east divide Sikkim from the Phari
province in Tibet; those on the north terminate in a forked or cleft
peak, which is a remarkable and conspicuous feature from Momay.
This, which I have called forked Donkia,* [Its elevation by my
observations is about 21,870 feet.] is the termination of a
magnificent amphitheatre of stupendous snow-clad precipices,
continuously upwards of 20,000 feet high, that forms the east flank
of the upper Lachoong. From Donkia top again, the mountains sweep
round to the westward, rising into fingered peaks of extraordinary
magnificence; and thence --still running west--dip to 18,500 feet,
forming the Donkia pass, and rise again as the great mural mass of
Kinchinjhow. This girdle of mountains encloses the head waters of the
Lachoong, which rises in countless streams from its perpetual snows,
glaciers, and small lakes: its north drainage is to the Cholamoo
lakes in Tibet; in which is the source of the Lachen, which flows
round the north base of Kinchinjhow to Kongra Lama.

The bottom of the Lachoong valley at Momay is broad, tolerably level,
grassy, and covered with isolated mounds and ridges that point down
the valley, and are the remains of glacial deposits. It dips suddenly
below this, and some gneiss rocks that rise in its centre are
remarkably _moutonneed_ or rounded, and have boulders perched on
their summits. Though manifestly rounded and grooved by ancient
glaciers, I failed to find scratches on these weather-worn rocks.* [I
have repeatedly, and equally in vain, sought for scratchings on many
of the most conspicuously moutonneed gneiss rocks of Switzerland.
The retention of such markings depends on other circumstances than
the mere hardness of the rock, or amount of aqueous action. What can
be more astonishing than to see these most delicate scratches
retained in all their sharpness on rocks clothed with seaweed and
shells, and exposed at every tide, in the bays of western Scotland!]

The Lachoong is here twelve or fifteen yards wide, and runs over a
pebbly bed, cutting a shallow channel through the deposits, down to
the subjacent rock, which is in some cases scooped out six or eight
feet deep by its waters. I do not doubt that the flatness of the
floor of the Momay valley is caused by the combined action of the
streams that drained the three glaciers which met here; for the
tendency of retiring glaciers is to level the floors of valleys, by
giving an ever-shifting direction to the rivers which drain them, and
which spread detritus in their course. Supposing these glaciers to
have had no terminal moraines, they might still have forced immense
beds of gravel into positions that would dam up lakes between the ice
and the flanks of the valleys, and thus produce much terracing on the
latter.* [We are still very ignorant of many details of ice action,
and especially of the origin of many enormous deposits which are not
true moraines. These, so conspicuous in the lofty Himalayan valleys,
are not less so in those of the Swiss Alps: witness that broad valley
in which Grindelwald village is situated, and which is covered to an
immense depth with angular detritus, moulded into hills and valleys;
also the whole broad open Upper Rhone valley, above the village of
Munster, and below that of Obergestelen. The action of broad glaciers
on gentle slopes is to raise their own beds by the accumulation of
gravel which their lower surface carries and pushes forward. I have
seen small glaciers thus raised 300 feet; leaving little doubt in my
mind that the upper Himalayan valleys were thus choked with deposit
1000 feet thick, of which indeed the proofs remain along the flanks
of the Yangma valley. The denuding and accumulating effects of ice
thus give a contour to mountain valleys, and sculpture their flanks
and floors far more rapidly than sea action, or the elements. After a
very extensive experience of ice in the Antarctic ocean, and in
mountainous countries, I cannot but conclude that very few of our
geologists appreciate the power of ice as a mechanical agent, which
can hardly be over-estimated, whether as glacier, iceberg, or pack
ice, heaping shingle along coasts.We are still very ignorant of many
details of ice action, and especially of the origin of many enormous
deposits which are not true moraines. These, so conspicuous in the
lofty Himalayan valleys, are not less so in those of the Swiss Alps:
witness that broad valley in which Grindelwald village is situated,
and which is covered to an immense depth with angular detritus,
moulded into hills and valleys; also the whole broad open Upper Rhone
valley, above the village of Munster, and below that of Obergestelen.
The action of broad glaciers on gentle slopes is to raise their own
beds by the accumulation of gravel which their lower surface carries
and pushes forward. I have seen small glaciers thus raised 300 feet;
leaving little doubt in my mind that the upper Himalayan valleys were
thus choked with deposit 1000 feet thick, of which indeed the proofs
remain along the flanks of the Yangma valley. The denuding and
accumulating effects of ice thus give a contour to mountain valleys,
and sculpture their flanks and floors far more rapidly than sea
action, or the elements. After a very extensive experience of ice in
the Antarctic ocean, and in mountainous countries, I cannot but
conclude that very few of our geologists appreciate the power of ice
as a mechanical agent, which can hardly be over-estimated, whether as
glacier, iceberg, or pack ice, heaping shingle along coasts.]