Himalayan Journals, vol 1 - J. D. Hooker (polar express read aloud txt) 📗

for villages and cultivation: the soil is a vegetable mould, over a deep stratum of red clay.

 

I am far from supposing that any geologically recent action of the sea has levelled these spurs; but as the great chain of the Himalaya has risen from the ocean, and as every part of it has been subjected to sea-action, it is quite conceivable that intervals of rest during the periods of elevation or submergence would effect their levelling.

In a mountain mass so tumbled as is that of Sikkim, any level surface, or approach to it, demands study; and when, as in the Kulhait valley, we find several similar spurs with comparatively flat tops, to occupy about the same level, it is necessary to look for some levelling cause. The action of denudation is still progressing with astonishing rapidity, under an annual fall of from 100 to 150

inches of rain; but its tendency is to obliterate all such phenomena, and to give sharp, rugged outlines to these spurs, in spite of the conservative effects of vegetation.

 

The weather at Lingcham was gloomy, cold, and damp, with much rain and fog, and the mean temperature (45.25 degrees) was cold for the elevation (4,860 feet): 52.5 degrees was the highest temperature observed, and 39 degrees the lowest.

 

A letter from Dr. Campbell reached me three days after my arrival, begging me to cross the country to the Teesta river, and meet him at Bhomsong, on its west bank, where he was awaiting my arrival.

I therefore left on the 20th of December, accompanied by my friend the Kajee, who was going to pay his respects to the Rajah. He was constantly followed by a lad, carrying a bamboo of Murwa beer slung round his neck, with which he kept himself always groggy. His dress was thoroughly Lepcha, and highly picturesque, consisting of a very broad-brimmed round-crowned bamboo-platted hat, scarlet jacket, and blue-striped cloth shirt, bare feet, long knife, bow and quiver, rings and earrings, and a long pigtail. He spoke no Hindoostanee, but was very communicative through my interpreters.

 

Leaving the Lingcham spur, we passed steep cliffs of mica and schist, covered with brushwood and long grass, about 1000 feet above which the Changachelling convent is perched. Crossing a torrent, we came to the next village, on the spur of Kurziuk, where I was met by a deputation of women, sent by the Lamas of Changachelling, bearing enormous loads of oranges, rice, milk, butter, ghee, and the everflowing Murwa beer.

 

The villagers had erected a shady bower for me to rest under, of leaves and branches, and had fitted up a little bamboo stage, on which to squat cross-legged as they do, or to hang my legs from, if I preferred: after conducting me to this, the parties advanced and piled their cumbrous presents on the ground, bowed, and retired; they were succeeded by the beer-carrier, who plunged a clean drinking-tube to the bottom of the steaming bamboo jug (described in Chapter VII), and held it to my mouth, then placing it by my side, he bowed and withdrew. Nothing can be more fascinating than the simple manners of these kind people, who really love hospitality for its own sake, and make the stranger feel himself welcome. Just now too, the Durbar had ordered every attention to be paid me; and I hardly passed a village however small, without receiving a present, or a cottage, where beer was not offered. This I found a most grateful beverage; and of the occasional rests under leafy screens during a hot day’s march, and sips at the bamboo jug, I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance.

Happily the liquor is very weak, and except by swilling, as my friend the Kajee did, it would be impossible to get fuddled by it.

 

At Kurziuk I was met by a most respectable Lepcha, who, as a sort of compliment, sent his son to escort us to the next village and spur of Pemiongchi, to reach which we crossed another gorge, of which the situation and features were quite similar to those of Kurziuk and Lingcham.

 

The Pemiongchi and Changachelling convents and temples stand a few miles apart, on the ridge forming the north flank of the Kulhait valley; and as they will be described hereafter, I now only allude to the village, which is fully 1000 feet below the convent, and large and populous.

 

At Pemiongchi a superior Lama met me with another overwhelming present: he was a most jolly fat monk, shaven and girdled, and dressed in a scarlet gown: my Lepchas kotowed to him, and he blessed them by the laying on of hands.

 

Illustration—PEMIONGCHI GOOMPA AND CHAITS.

 

There is a marsh on this spur, full of the common English Acorus Calamus, or sweet-flag, whose roots being very aromatic, are used in griping disorders of men and cattle. Hence we descended suddenly to the Great Rungeet, which we reached at its junction with the Kulhait: the path was very steep and slippery, owing to micaceous rocks, and led along the side of an enormous Mendong,* [This remarkable structure, called the Kaysing Mendong, is 200 yards long, 10 feet high, and 6 or 8 feet broad: it is built of flat, slaty stones, and both faces are covered with inscribed slates, of which there are upwards of 700, and the inscriptions, chiefly “Om Mani,” etc., are in both the Uchen and Lencha Ranja characters of Tibet. A tall stone, nine feet high, covered also with inscriptions, terminates it at the lower end.] which ran down the hill for several hundred yards, and had a large chait at each end, with several smaller ones at intervals. Throughout its length were innumerable inscriptions of “Om Mani Padmi om,” with well carved figures of Boodh in his many incarnations, besides Lamas, etc. At the lower end was a great flat area, on which are burnt the bodies of Sikkim people of consequence: the poorer people are buried, the richer burned, and their ashes scattered or interred, but not in graves proper, of which there are none. Nor are there any signs of Lepcha interment throughout Sikkim; though chaits are erected to the memory of the departed, they have no necessary connection with the remains, and generally none at all.

Corpses in Sikkim are never cut to pieces and thrown into lakes, or exposed on hills for the kites and crows to devour, as is the case in Tibet.

 

We passed some curious masses of crumpled chlorite slate, presenting deep canals or furrows, along which a demon once drained all the water from the Pemiongchi spur, to the great annoyance of the villagers: the Lamas, however, on choosing this as a site for their temples, easily confounded the machinations of the evil spirit, who, in the eyes of the simple Lepchas, was answerable for all the mischief.

 

I crossed the Great Rungeet at 1840 feet above the sea, where its bed was twenty yards in width; a rude bridge, composed of two culms of bamboo and a handrail, conducted me to the other side, where we camped (on the east bank) in a thick tropical jungle. In the evening I walked down the banks of the river, which flowed in a deep gorge, cumbered with enormous boulders of granite, clay-slate, and mica-slate; the rocks in situ were all of the latter description, highly inclined, and much dislocated. Some of the boulders were fully ten feet in diameter, permeated and altered very much by granite veins which had evidently been injected when molten, and had taken up angular masses of the chlorite which remained, as it were, suspended in the veins.

 

It is not so easy to account for the present position of these blocks of granite, a rock not common at elevations below 10,000 feet.

They have been transported from a considerable distance in the interior of the lofty valley to the north, and have descended not less than 8000 feet, and travelled fully fifteen miles in a straight line, or perhaps forty along the river bed. It may be supposed that moraines have transported them to 8000 feet (the lowest limit of apparent moraines), and the power of river water carried them further; if so, the rivers must have been of much greater volume formerly than they are now.

 

Our camp was on a gravel flat, like those of the Nepal valleys, about sixty feet above the river; its temperature was 52 degrees, which felt cool when bathing.

 

From the river we proceeded west, following a steep and clayey ascent up the end of a very long spur, from the lofty mountain range called Mungbreu, dividing the Great Rungeet from the Teesta. We ascended by a narrow path, accomplishing 2,500 feet in an hour and a quarter, walking slowly but steadily, without resting; this I always found a heavy pull in a hot climate.

 

At about 4000 feet above the sea, the spur became more open and flat, like those of the Kulhait valley, with alternate slopes and comparative flats: from this elevation the view north, south, and west, was very fine; below us flowed the river, and a few miles up it was the conical wooded hill of Tassiding, rising abruptly from a fork of the deep river gorge, crowned with its curious temples and mendongs, and bristling with chaits: on it is the oldest monastery in Sikkim, occupying a singularly picturesque and prominent position.

North of this spur, and similar to it, lay that of Raklang, with the temple and monastery of the same name, at about this elevation.

In front, looking west, across the Great Rungeet, were the monasteries of Changachelling and Pemiongchi, perched aloft; and south of these were the flat-topped spurs of the Kulhait valley, with their villages, and the great mendong which I had passed on the previous day, running like a white line down the spur. To the north, beyond Tassiding, were two other monasteries, Doobdee and Sunnook, both apparently placed on the lower wooded flanks of Kinchinjunga; whilst close by was Dholing, the seventh religious establishment now in sight.

 

We halted at a good wooden house to refresh ourselves with Murwa beer, where I saw a woman with cancer in the face, an uncommon complaint in this country. I here bought a little black puppy, to be my future companion in Sikkim: he was of a breed between the famous Tibet mastiff and the common Sikkim hunting-dog, which is a variety of the sorry race called Pariah in the plains. Being only a few weeks old, he looked a mere bundle of black fur; and I carried him off, for he could not walk.

 

We camped at the village of Lingdam (alt. 5,550 feet), occupying a flat, and surrounded by extensive pools of water (for this country) containing Acorus, Potamogeton, and duckweed. Such ponds I have often met with on these terraces, and they are very remarkable, not being dammed in by any conspicuous barrier, but simply occupying depressions in the surface, from which, as I have repeatedly observed, the land dips rapidly to the valleys below.

 

This being the high-road from Tumloong or Sikkim Durbar (the capital, and Rajah’s residence) to the numerous monasteries which I had seen, we passed many Lamas and monks on their way home from Tumloong, where they had gone to be present at the marriage of the Tupgain Lama, the eldest son of the Rajah. A dispensation having previously been procured from Lhassa, this marriage had been effected by the Lamas, in order to counteract the efforts of the Dewan, who sought to exercise an undue influence over the Rajah and his family.

The Tupgain Lama having only spiritual authority, and being bound to celibacy, the temporal authority devolved on the second son, who was heir apparent of Sikkim; he, however, having