Books: Himalayan Journals (Complete)

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

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Every night that we spent in Tibet, we enjoyed a magnificent display
of sunbeams converging to the east, and making a false sunset.
I detailed this phenomenon when seen from the Kymore mountains, and I
repeatedly saw it again in the Khasia, but never in the Sikkim
Himalaya, whence I assume that it is most frequent in mountain
plateaus. As the sun set, broad purple beams rose from a dark, low,
leaden bank on the eastern horizon, and spreading up to the zenith,
covered the intervening space: they lasted through the twilight, from
fifteen to twenty minutes, fading gradually into the blackness of
night. I looked in vain for the beautiful lancet beam of the zodiacal
light; its position was obscured by Chomiomo.

On the 18th of October we had another brilliant morning, after a cold
night, the temperature having fallen to 4 degrees. I took the
altitude of Yeumtso by carefully boiling two thermometers, and the
result was 16,279 feet, the barometrical observations giving 16,808
feet. I removed a thermometer sunk three feet in the gravelly soil,
which showed a temperature of 43 degrees,* [It had risen to 43.5
degrees during the previous day.] which is 12.7 degrees above the
mean temperature of the two days we camped here.

Our fires were made of dry yak droppings which soon burn out with a
fierce flame, and much black smoke; they give a disagreeable taste to
whatever is cooked with them.

Having sent the coolies forward to Cholamoo lake, we re-ascended
Bhomtso to verify my observations. As on the previous occasion a
violent dry north-west wind blew, peeling the skin from our faces,
loading the air with grains of sand, and rendering theodolite
observations very uncertain; besides injuring all my instruments, and
exposing them to great risk of breakage.

The Tibetan Sepoys did not at all understand our ascending Bhomtso a
second time; they ran after Campbell, who was ahead on a stout pony,
girding up their long garments, bracing their matchlocks tight over
their shoulders, and gasping for breath at every step, the long horns
of their muskets bobbing up and down as they toiled amongst the
rocks. When I reached the top I found Campbell seated behind a little
stone wall which he had raised to keep off the violent wind, and the
uncouth warriors in a circle round him, puzzled beyond measure at his
admiration of the view. My instruments perplexed them extremely, and
in crowding round me, they broke my azimuth compass. They left us to
ourselves when the fire I made to boil the thermometers went out, the
wind being intensely cold. I had given my barometer to one of
Campbell's men to carry, who not coming up, the latter kindly went to
search for him, and found him on the ground quite knocked up and
stupified by the cold, and there, if left alone, he would have lain
till overtaken by death.

The barometer on the summit of Bhomtso stood at 15.548 inches;* [The
elevation of Bhomtso, worked by Bessel's tables, and using corrected
observations of the Calcutta barometer for the lower station, is
18,590 feet. The corresponding dew-point 4.4 degrees (49.6 degrees
below that of the air at the time of observation). By Oltmann's
tables the elevation is 18,540 feet. The elevation by boiling water
is 18,305.] the temperature between 11.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m.
fluctuated between 44 degrees and 56 degrees: this was very high for
so great an elevation, and no doubt due to the power of the sun on
the sterile soil, and consequent radiated heat. The tension of vapour
was .0763, and the dew-point was 5.8 degrees, or 43.5 degrees below
the temperature of the air. Such extraordinary dryness* [The weight
of vapour in a cubic foot of air was no more than .087 of a grain,
and the saturation-point .208.] and consequent evaporation, increased
by the violent wind, sufficiently accounts for the height of the snow
line; in further evidence of which, I may add that a piece of ice or
snow laid on the ground here, does not melt, but disappears
by evaporation.

The difference between the dry cold air of this elevation and that of
the heated plains of India, is very great. During the driest winds of
the Terai, in spring, the temperature is 80 degrees to 90 degrees,
the tension of vapour is .400 to .500, with a dew-point 22 degrees
below the temperature, and upwards of six grains of vapour are
suspended in the cubic foot of air; a thick haze obscures the
heavens, and clouds of dust rise high in the air; here on the other
hand (probably owing to the rarity of the atmosphere and the low
tension of its vapours), the drought is accompanied by perfect
transparency, and the atmosphere is too attenuated to support the
dust raised by the wind.

We descended in the afternoon, and on our way up the Lachen valley
examined a narrow gulley in a lofty red spur from Kinchinjhow, where
black shales were _in situ,_ striking north-east, and dipping
north-west 45 degrees. These shales were interposed between beds of
yellow quartz conglomerate, upon the latter of which rested a talus
of earthy rocks, angular fragments of which were strewed about
opposite this spur, but were not seen elsewhere.

It became dark before we reached the Cholamoo lake, where we lost our
way amongst glaciers, moraines, and marshes. We expected to have seen
the lights of the camp, but were disappointed, and as it was freezing
hard, we began to be anxious, and shouted till the echos of our
voices against the opposite bank were heard by Tchebu Lama, who met
us in great alarm for our safety. Our camp was pitched some way from
the shore, on a broad plain, 16,900 feet above the sea.* [This, which
is about the level of the lake, gives the Lachen river a fall of
about 1500 feet between its source and Kongra Lama, or sixty feet per
mile following its windings. From Kongra Lama to Tallum it is 140
feet per mile; from Tallum to Singtam 160 feet; and from Singtam to
the plains of India 50 feet per mile. The total fall from Cholamoo
lake to its exit on the plains of India is eighty-five feet per mile.
Its length, following its windings, is 195 miles, upwards of double
the direct distance.] A cold wind descended from Donkia; yet, though
more elevated than Yeumtso, the climate of Cholamoo, from being
damper and misty, was milder. The minimum thermometer fell to
14 degrees.

Before starting for Donkia pass on the following morning, we visited
some black rocks which rose from the flat to the east of the lake.
They proved to be of fossiliferous limestone, the strata of which
were much disturbed: the strike appeared in one part north-west, and
the dip north-east 45 degrees: a large fault passed east by north
through the cliff, and it was further cleft by joints running
northwards. The cliff was not 100 yards long, and was about 70 thick;
its surface was shivered by frost into cubical masses, and glacial
boulders of gneiss lay on the top. The limestone rock was chiefly a
blue pisolite conglomerate, with veins and crystals of white
carbonate of lime, seams of shale, and iron pyrites. A part was
compact and blue, very crystalline, and full of encrinitic fossils,
and probably nummulites, but all were too much altered for
determination.

This, from its mineral characters, appears to be the same limestone
formation which occurs throughout the Himalaya and Western Tibet; but
the fossils I collected are in too imperfect a state to warrant any
conclusions on this subject. Its occurrence immediately to the
northward of the snowy mountains, and in such very small quantities,
are very remarkable facts. The neighbouring rocks of Donkia were
gneiss with granite veins, also striking north-west and dipping
north-east 10 degrees, as if they overlay the limestone, but here as
in all similar situations there was great confusion of the strata,
and variation in direction and strike.

And here I may once for all confess that though I believe the general
strike of the rocks on this frontier to be north-west, and the dip
north-east, I am unable to affirm it positively; for though I took
every opportunity of studying the subject, and devoted many hours to
the careful measuring and recording of dips and strikes, on both
faces of Kinchinjhow, Donkia, Bhomtso, and Kongra Lama, I am unable
to reduce these to any intelligible system.* [North-west is the
prevalent strike in Kumaon, the north-west Himalaya generally, and
throughout Western Tibet, Kashmir, etc., according to Dr. Thomson.]

The coolies of Dr. Campbell's party were completely knocked up by the
rarified air; they had taken a whole day to march here from Yeumtso,
scarcely six miles, and could eat no food at night. A Lama of our
party offered up prayers* [All diseases are attributed by the
Tibetans to the four elements, who are propitiated accordingly in
cases of severe illness. The winds are invoked in cases of affections
of the breathing; fire in fevers and inflammations; water in dropsy,
and diseases whereby the fluids are affected; and the God of earth
when solid organs are diseased, as in liver-complaints, rheumatism,
etc. Propitiatory offerings are made to the deities of these
elements, but never sacrifices.] to Kinchinjhow for the recovery of a
stout Lepcha lad (called Nurko), who showed no signs of animation,
and had all the symptoms of serous apoplexy. The Lama perched a
saddle on a stone, and burning incense before it, scattered rice to
the winds, invoking Kinchin, Donkia, and all the neighbouring peaks.
A strong dose of calomel and jalap, which we poured down the sick
lad's throat, contributed materially to the success of these
incantations.

The Tibetan Sepoys were getting tired of our delays, which so much
favoured my operations; but though showing signs of impatience and
sulkiness, they behaved well to the last; taking the sick man to the
top of the pass on their yaks, and assisting all the party: nothing,
however, would induce them to cross into Sikkim, which they
considered as "Company's territory."

Before proceeding to the pass, I turned off to the east, and
re-ascended Donkia to upwards of 19,000 feet, vainly hoping to get a
more distant view, and other bearings of the Tibetan mountains.
The ascent was over enormous piles of loose rocks split by the frost,
and was extremely fatiguing. I reached a peak overhanging a steep
precipice, at whose base were small lakes and glaciers, from which
flowed several sources of the Lachen, afterwards swelled by the great
affluent from Cholamoo lake. A few rocks striking north-east and
dipping north-west, projected at the very summit, with frozen snow
amongst them, beyond which the ice and precipices rendered it
impossible to proceed: but though exposed to the north, there was no
perpetual snow in the ordinary acceptation of the term, and an arctic
European lichen (_Lecidea oreina_) grew on the top, so faintly
discolouring the rocks as hardly to be detected without a
magnifying-glass.

I descended obliquely, down a very steep slope of 35 degrees, over
upwards of a thousand feet of debris, the blocks on which were so
loosely poised on one another, that it was necessary to proceed with
the utmost circumspection, for I was alone, and a false step would
almost certainly have been followed by breaking a leg. The alternate
freezing and thawing of rain amongst these masses, must produce a
constant downward motion in the whole pile of debris (which was
upwards of 2000 feet high), and may account for the otherwise
unexplained phenomenon of continuous shoots of angular rocks reposing
on very gentle slopes in other places.* [May not the origin of the
streams of quartz blocks that fill gently sloping broad valleys
several miles long, in the Falkland Islands, be thus explained? (See
"Darwin's Journal," in Murray's Home and Col. Lib.) The extraordinary
shifting in the position of my thermometer left among the rocks of
the Donkia pass (see chapter xxii), and the mobile state of the
slopes I descended on this occasion, first suggested this explanation
to me. When in the Falkland Islands I was wholly unable to offer any
explanation of the phenomenon there, to which my attention had been
drawn by Mr. Darwin's narrative.]

The north ascent to the Donkia pass is by a path well selected
amongst immense angular masses of rock, and over vast piles of
debris: the strike on this, the north face, was again north-east, and
dip north-west: I arrived at the top at 3 p.m., throughly fatigued,
and found my faithful Lepcha lads (Cheytoong and Bassebo) nestling
under a rock with my theodolite and barometers, having been awaiting
my arrival in the biting wind for three hours. My pony stood there
too, the picture of patience, and laden with minerals.
After repeating my observations, I proceeded to Momay Samdong, where
I arrived after dusk. I left a small bottle of brandy and some
biscuits with the lads, and it was well I did so, for the pony
knocked up before reaching Momay, and rather than leave my bags of
stones, they passed the night by the warm flank of the beast, under a
rock at 18,000 feet elevation, without other food, fire, or shelter.

I found my companion encamped at Momay, on the spot I had occupied in
September; he had had the utmost difficulty in getting his coolies
on, as they threw down their light loads in despair, and lying with
their faces to the ground, had to be roused from a lethargy that
would soon have been followed by death.

We rested for a day at Momay, and on the 20th, attempted to ascend to
the Donkia glacier, but were driven back by a heavy snow-storm.
The scenery on arriving here, presented a wide difference to that we
had left; snow lying at 16,500 feet, whereas immediately to the north
of the same mountain there was none at 19,000 feet. Before leaving
Momay; I sealed two small glass flasks containing the air of this
elevation, by closing with a spirit lamp a very fine capillary tube,
which formed the opening to each; avoiding the possibility of heating
the contents by the hand or otherwise. The result of its analysis by
Mr. Muller (who sent me the prepared flasks), was that it contained
36.538 per cent. in volume of oxygen; whereas his repeated analysis
of the air of Calcutta gives 21 per cent. Such a result is too
anomalous to be considered satisfactory.

I again visited the Kinchinjhow glacier and hot springs; the water
had exactly the same temperature as in the previous month, though the
mean temperature of the air was 8 degrees or 9 degrees lower.
The minimum thermometer fell to 22 degrees, being 10 degrees lower
than it ever fell in September.

We descended to Yeumtong in a cold drizzle, arriving by sunset; we
remained through the following day, hoping to explore the lower
glacier on the opposite side of the valley: which, however, the
weather entirely prevented. I have before mentioned (chapter xxiii)
that in descending in autumn from the drier and more sunny rearward
Sikkim valleys, the vegetation is found to be most backward in the
lowest and dampest regions. On this occasion, I found asters,
grasses, polygonums, and other plants that were withered, brown, and
seeding at Momay (14,000 to 15,000 feet), at Yeumtong (12,000 feet)
green and unripe; and 2000 feet lower still, at Lachoong, the
contrast was even more marked. Thus the short backward spring and
summer of the Arctic zone is overtaken by an early and forward
seed-time and winter: so far as regards the effects of mean
temperature, the warmer station is in autumn more backward than the
colder. This is everywhere obvious in the prevalent plants of each,
and is especially recognisable in the rhododendrons; as the following
table shows:--
16,000 to 17,000 feet, _R. nivale_ flowers in July; fruits in
September=2 months.
13,000 to 14,000 feet, _R. anthopogon_ flowers in June; fruits in
Oct.=4 months.
11,000 to 12,000 feet, _R. campanulatum_ flowers in May; fruits in
Nov.=8 months.
8,000 to 9,000 feet, _R. argenteum_ flowers in April; fruits in
Dec.=8 months.

And so it is with many species of _Compositae_ and _Umbelliferae,_
and indeed of all natural orders, some of which I have on the same
day gathered in ripe fruit at 13,000 to 14,000 feet, and found still
in flower at 9000 to 10,000 feet. The brighter skies and more
powerful and frequent solar radiation at the greater elevations,
account for this apparent inversion of the order of nature.* [The
distribution of the seasons at different elevations in the Himalaya
gives rise to some anomalies that have puzzled naturalists. From the
middle of October to that of May, vegetation is torpid above 14,000
feet, and indeed almost uniformly covered with snow. From November
till the middle of April, vegetation is also torpid above 10,000
feet, except that a few trees and bushes do not ripen all their seeds
till December. The three winter months (December, January, and
February) are all but dead above 6000 feet, the earliest appearance
of spring at Dorjiling (7000 feet) being at the sudden accession of
heat in March. From May till August the vegetation at each elevation
is (in ascending order) a month behind that below it; 4000 feet being
about equal to a month of summer weather in one sense. I mean by
this, that the genera and natural orders (and sometimes the species)
which flower at 8000 feet in May, are not so forward at 12,000 feet
till June, nor at 16,000 feet till July. After August, however, the
reverse holds good; then the vegetation is as forward at 16,000 feet
as at 8000 feet. By the end of September most of the natural orders
and genera have ripened their fruit in the upper zone, though they
have flowered as late as July; whereas October is the fruiting month
at 12,000, and November below 10,000 feet. Dr. Thomson does not
consider that the more sunny climate of the loftier elevations
sufficiently accounts for this, and adds the stimulus of cold, which
must act by checking the vegetative organs and hastening maturation.]

I was disappointed at finding the rhododendron seeds still immature
at Yeumtong, for I was doubtful whether the same kinds might be met
with at the Chola pass, which I had yet to visit; besides which,
their tardy maturation threatened to delay me for an indefinite
period in the country. _Viburnum_ and _Lonicera,_ however, were ripe
and abundant; the fruits of both are considered poisonous in Europe,
but here the black berries of a species of the former (called
"Nalum") are eatable and agreeable; as are those of a _Gualtheria,_
which are pale blue, and called "Kalumbo." Except these, and the
cherry mentioned above, there are no other autumnal fruits above
10,000 feet: brambles, strange as it may appear, do not ascend beyond
that elevation in the Sikkim Himalaya, though so abundant below it,
both in species and individuals, and though so typical of
northern Europe.

At Lachoong we found all the yaks that had been grazing till the end
of September at the higher elevations, and the Phipun presented our
men with one of a gigantic size, and proportionally old and tough.
The Lepchas barbarously slaughtered it with arrows, and feasted on
the flesh and entrails, singed and fried the skin, and made soup of
the bones, leaving nothing but the horns and hoofs. Having a fine
day, they prepared some as jerked meat, cutting it into thin strips,
which they dried on the rocks. This (called "Schat-chew," dried meat)
is a very common and favourite food in Tibet, I found it palatable;
but on the other hand, the dried saddles of mutton, of which they
boast so much, taste so strongly of tallow, that I found it
impossible to swallow a morsel of them.* [Raw dried split fish are
abundantly cured (without salt) in Tibet; they are caught in the Yaru
and great lakes of Ramchoo, Dobtah, and Yarbru, and are chiefly carp,
and allied fish, which attain a large size. It is one of the most
remarkable facts in the zoology of Asia, that no trout or salmon
inhabits any of the rivers that debouche into the Indian Ocean (the
so-called Himalayan trout is a species of carp). This widely
distributed natural order of fish (_Salmonidae_) is however, found in
the Oxus, and in all the rivers of central Asia that flow north and
west, and the _Salmo orientalis,_ M'Clelland ("Calcutta Journ. Nat.
Hist." iii., p. 283), was caught by Mr. Griffith (Journals, p. 404)
in the Bamean river (north of the Hindo Koosh) which flows into the
Oxus, and whose waters are separated by one narrow mountain ridge
from those of the feeders of the Indus. The central Himalayan rivers
often rise in Tibet from lakes full of fish, but have none (at least
during the rains) in that rapid part of their course from 10,000 to
14,000 feet elevation: below that fish abound, but I believe
invariably of different species from those found at the sources of
the same rivers. The nature of the tropical ocean into which all the
Himalayan rivers debouche, is no doubt the proximate cause of the
absence of _Salmonidae._ Sir John Richardson (Fishes of China Seas,
etc., "in Brit. Ass. Rep. etc."), says that no species of the order
has been found in the Chinese or eastern Asiatic seas.]

We staid two days at Lachoong, two of my lads being again laid up
with fever; one of them had been similarly attacked at the same place
nearly two months before: the other lad had been repeatedly ill since
June, and at all elevations. Both cases were returns of a fever
caught in the low unhealthy valleys some months previously, and
excited by exposure and hardship.

The vegetation at Lachoong was still beautiful, and the weather mild,
though snow had descended to 14,000 feet on Tunkra. _Compositae_ were
abundantly in flower, apples in young fruit, bushes of _Cotoneaster_
covered with scarlet berries, and the brushwood silvery with the
feathery heads of _Clematis._

I here found that I had lost a thermometer for high temperatures,
owing to a hole in the bag in which Cheytoong carried those of my
instruments which were in constant use. It had been last used at the
hot springs of the Kinchinjhow glacier; and the poor lad was so
concerned at his mishap, that he came to me soon afterwards, with his
blanket on his back, and a few handfuls of rice in a bag, to make his
salaam before setting out to search for it. There was not now a
single inhabitant between Lachoong and that dreary spot, and strongly
against my wish he started, without a companion. Three days
afterwards he overtook us at Keadom, radiant with joy at having found
the instrument: he had gone up to the hot springs, and vainly sought
around them that evening; then rather than lose the chance of a
day-light search on his way back, he had spent the cold October night
in the hot water, without fire or shelter, at 16,000 feet above the
sea. Next morning his search was again fruitless; and he was
returning disconsolate, when he descried the brass case glistening
between two planks of the bridge crossing the river at Momay, over
which torrent the instrument was suspended. The Lepchas have
generally been considered timorous of evil spirits, and especially
averse to travelling at night, even in company. However little this
gallant lad may have been given to superstition, he was nevertheless
a Lepcha, born in a warm region, and had never faced the cold till he
became my servant; and it required a stout heart and an honest one,
to spend a night in so awful a solitude as that which reigns around
the foot of the Kinchinjhow glacier.* [The fondness of natives for
hot springs wherever they occur is very natural and has been noticed
by Humboldt, "Pers. Narr." iv. 195, who states that on Christianity
being introduced into Iceland, the natives refused to be baptised in
any but the water of the Geysers. I have mentioned at chapter xxii
the uses to which the Yeumtong hot springs are put; and the custom of
using artificial hot baths is noticed at vol. i., chapter xiii.]

The villagers at Keadom, where we slept on the 26th, were busy
cutting the crops of millet, maize, and _Amaranthus._ A girl who, on
my way down the previous month, had observed my curiosity about a
singular variety of the maize, had preserved the heads on their
ripening, and now brought them to me. The peaches were all gathered,
and though only half ripe, were better than Dorjiling produce.
A magnificent tree of _Bucklandia,_ one of the most beautiful
evergreens in Sikkim, grew near this village; it had a trunk
twenty-one feet seven inches in girth, at five feet from the ground,
and was unbranched for forty feet.* [This superb tree is a great
desideratum in our gardens; I believe it would thrive in the warm
west of England. Its wood is brown, and not valuable as timber, but
the thick, bright, glossy, evergreen foliage is particularly
handsome, and so is the form of the crown. It is also interesting in
a physiological point of view, from the woody fibre being studded
with those curious microscopic discs so characteristic of pines, and
which when occurring on fossil wood are considered conclusive as to
the natural family to which such woods belong. Geologists should bear
in mind that not only does the whole natural order to which
_Bucklandia_ belongs, possess this character, but also various
species of _Magnoliaceae_ found in India, Australia, Borneo, and
South America.] Ferns and the beautiful air-plant _Coelogyne
Wallichii_ grew on its branches, with other orchids, while _Clematis_
and _Stauntonia_ climbed the trunk. Such great names (Buckland,
Staunton, and Wallich) thus brought before the traveller's notice,
never failed to excite lively and pleasing emotions: it is the
ignorant and unfeeling alone who can ridicule the association of the
names of travellers and naturalists with those of animals and plants.