Himalayan Journals — Volume 1: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
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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
From the opposite side of the Tawa to Khabang (alt. 6,020 feet), I
was, during our march southwards, most fortunate in obtaining a
splendid view of Kinchinjunga (bearing north-east by north), with its
associates, rising over the dark mass of Singalelah, its flanks
showing like tier above tier of green glaciers: its distance was
fully twenty-five miles, and as only about 7000 feet or 8000 feet
from its summit were visible, and Kubra was foreshortened against it,
its appearance was not grand; added to which, its top was round and
hummocky, not broken into peaks, as when seen from the south and
east. Villages and cultivation became more frequent as we proceeded
southward, and our daily marches were up ridges, and down into deep
valleys, with feeders from the flanks of Sidingbah to the Tambur.
We passed through the village of Tchonboong, and camped at Yangyading
(4,100 feet), sighted Yamroop, a large village and military post to
the west of our route, crossed the Pangwa river, and reached the
valley of the Khabili. During this part of the journey, I did not
once see the Tambur river, though I was day after day marching only
seven to ten miles distant from it, so uneven is the country.
The mountains around Taptiatok, Mywa Guola, and Chingtam, were
pointed out to me, but they presented no recognizable feature.
I often looked for some slope, or strike of the slopes of the spurs,
in any one valley, or that should prevail through several, but could
seldom trace any, except on one or two occasions, at low elevations.
Looking here across the valleys, there was a tendency in the gentle
slopes of the spurs to have plane faces dipping north-east, and to be
bounded by a line of cliffs striking north-west, and facing the
south-east. In such arrangements, the upheaved cliffs may be supposed
to represent parallel lines of faults, dislocation, or rupture, but I
could never trace any secondary valleys at right angles to these.
There is no such uniformity of strike as to give to the rivers a
zig-zag course of any regularity, or one having any apparent
dependence on a prevailing arrangement of the rocks; for, though the
strike of the chlorite and clay-slate at elevations below 6000 feet
along its course, is certainly north-west, with a dip to north-east,
the flexures of the river, as projected on the map, deviate very
widely from these directions.
The valley of the Khabili is very grand, broad, open, and intersected
by many streams and cultivated spurs: the road from Yamroop to
Sikkim, once well frequented, runs up its north flank, and though it
was long closed we determined to follow and clear it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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