Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
History
Himalayan Journals — Complete: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Himalaya Mountains
Below Leebong is the village of Ging, surrounded by steeps, cultivated
with maize, rice, and millet. It is rendered very picturesque by a long
row of tall poles, each bearing a narrow, vertically elongated banner,
covered with Boodhist inscriptions, and surmounted by coronet-like
ornaments, or spear-heads, rudely cut out of wood, or formed of
basket-work, and adorned with cotton fringe. Ging is peopled by Bhotan
emigrants, and when one dies, if his relations can afford to pay for
them, two additional poles and flags are set up by the Lamas in honour
of his memory, and that of Sunga, the third member of the Boodhist
Trinity.
Below this the _Gordonia_ commences, with _Cedrela toona,_ and various
tropical genera, such as abound near Punkabaree. The heat and hardness
of the rocks cause the streams to dry up on these abrupt hills,
especially on the eastern slope, and the water is therefore conveyed
along the sides of the path, in conduits ingeniously made of bamboo,
either split in half, or, what is better, whole, except at the septum,
which is removed through a lateral hole. The oak and chesnut of this
level (3000 feet), are both different from those which grow above, as
are the brambles. The _Arums_ are replaced by _Caladiums._ Tree-ferns
cease below 4000 feet, and the large bamboo abounds.
At about 2000 feet, and ten miles distant from Dorjiling, we arrived at
a low, long spur, dipping down to the bed of the Rungeet, at its
junction with the Rungmo. This is close to the boundary of the British
ground, and there is a guard-house, and a sepoy or two at it; here we
halted. It took the Lepchas about twenty minutes to construct a table
and two bedsteads within our tent; each was made of four forked sticks,
stuck in the ground, supporting as many side-pieces, across which were
laid flat split pieces of bamboo, bound tightly together by strips of
rattan palm-stem. The beds were afterwards softened by many layers of
bamboo-leaf, and if not very downy, they were dry, and as firm as if
put together with screws and joints. This spur rises out of a deep
valley, quite surrounded by lofty mountains; it is narrow, and covered
with red clay, which the natives chew as a cure for goître. North, it
looks down into a gully, at the bottom of which the Rungeet’s foamy
stream winds through a dense forest. In the opposite direction, the
Rungmo comes tearing down from the top of Sinchul, 7000 feet above; and
though its roar is heard, and its course is visible throughout its
length, the stream itself is nowhere seen, so deep does it cut its
channel. Except on this, and a few similarly hard rocky hills around,
the vegetation is a mass of wood and jungle. At this spot it is rather
scanty and dry, with abundance of the _Pinus lonjpgolia_ and Sal. The
dwarf date-palm (_Phœnix acaulis_) also, was very abundant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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