Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
History
Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: 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
A little further on we crossed the main ridge of Sakkiazung, a long
flexuous chain stretching for miles to the westward from Phulloot on
Singalelah, and forming the most elevated and conspicuous transverse
range in this part of Nepal: its streams flow south to the Myong, and
north to feeders of the Tambur. Silver firs (_Abies Webbiana_) are
found on all the summits; but to my regret none occurred in our path,
which led just below their limit (10,000 feet), on the southern
Himalayan ranges. There were, however, a few yews, exactly like the
English. The view that opened on cresting this range was again
magnificent, of Kinchinjunga, the western snows of Nepal, and the
valley of the Tambur winding amongst wooded and cultivated hills to a
long line of black-peaked, rugged mountains, sparingly snowed, which
intervene between Kinchinjunga and the great Nepal mountain before
mentioned. The extremely varied colouring on the infinite number of
hill-slopes that everywhere intersected the Tambur valley was very
pleasing. For fully forty miles to the northward there were no lofty
forest-clad mountains, nor any apparently above 4000 to 5000 feet:
villages and hamlets appeared everywhere, with crops of golden
mustard and purple buckwheat in full flower; yellow rice and maize,
green hemp, pulse, radishes, and barley, and brown millet. Here and
there deep groves of oranges, the broad-leafed banana, and
sugar-cane, skirted the bottoms of the valleys, through which the
streams were occasionally seen, rushing in white foam over their
rocky beds. It was a goodly sight to one who had for his only
standard of comparison the view from Sinchul, of the gloomy
forest-clad ranges of 6000 to 10,000 feet, that intervene between
that mountain and the snowy girdle of Sikkim; though I question
whether a traveller from more favoured climes would see more in this,
than a thinly inhabited country, with irregular patches of poor
cultivation, a vast amount of ragged forest on low hills of rather
uniform height and contour, relieved by a dismal back-ground of
frowning black mountains, sprinkled with snow! Kinchinjunga was again
the most prominent object to the north-east, with its sister peaks of
Kubra (24,005 feet), and Junnoo (25,312 feet). All these presented
bare cliff's for several thousand feet below their summits, composed
of white rock with a faint pink tint:--on the other hand the lofty
Nepal mountain in the far west presented cliffs of black rocks. From
the summit two routes to the Tambur presented themselves; one, the
main road, led west and south along the ridge, and then turned north,
descending to the river; the other was shorter, leading abruptly down
to the Pemmi river, and thence along its banks, west to the Tambur.
I chose the latter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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