I arrived at the village of Wallanchoon on the 23rd of November. It is elevated 10,385 feet, and situated in a fine open part of the Tambur valley, differing from any part lower down in all its natural features; being broad, with a rapid but not turbulent stream, very grassy, and both the base and sides of the flanking mountains covered with luxuriant dense bushes of rhododendron, rose, berberry and juniper. Red-legged crows, hawks, wild pigeons, and finches, abounded. There was but little snow on the mountains around, which are bare and craggy above, but sloping below. Bleak and forbidding as the situation of any Himalayan village at 10,000 feet elevation must be, that of Wallanchoon is rendered the more so from the comparatively few trees; for though the silver fir and juniper are both abundant higher up the valley, they have been felled here for building materials, fuel, and export to Tibet. From the naked limbs and tall gaunt black trunks of those that remain, stringy masses of bleached lichen (_Usnea_) many feet long, stream in the wind. Both men and women seemed fond of decorating their hair with wreaths of this lichen, which they dye yellow with leaves of _Symplocos._ [Illustration: Wallanchoon village] The village is very large, and occupies a flat on the east bank of the river, covered with huge boulders: the ascent to it is extremely steep, probably over an ancient moraine, though I did not recognise it as such at the time. Cresting this, the valley at once opens, and I was almost startled with the sudden change from a gloomy gorge to a broad flat and a populous village of large and good painted wooden houses, ornamented with hundreds of long poles and vertical flags, looking like the fleet of some foreign port; while a swarm of good-natured, intolerably dirty Tibetans, were kotowing to me as I advanced.