Himalayan Journals — Volume 2: 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 2: 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
Soon after sunset the Lama returned, bringing Campbell; who, having
mistaken some glacier-fed lakes at the back of Kinchinjhow for those
of Cholamoo, was looking for me. He too had speculated on having to
pass the night under a rock, with one plaid for himself and servant;
in which case I am sure they would both have been frozen to death,
having no pony to lie down beside. He told me that after I had
quitted Kongra Lama, leaving him with the Tchebu Lama and Phipun, the
Dingpun and twenty men came up, and very civilly but formally forbade
their crossing the frontier; but that upon explaining his motives,
and representing that it would save him ten days' journey, the
Dingpun had relented, and promised to conduct the whole party to the
Donkia pass.
We pitched our little tent in the corner of the cattle-pen, and our
coolies soon afterwards came up; mine were in capital health, though
suffering from headaches, but Campbell's were in a distressing state
of illness and fatigue, with swollen faces and rapid pulses, and some
were insensible from symptoms like pressure on the brain;* [I have
never experienced bleeding at the nose, ears, lips or eyelids, either
in my person or that of my companions, on these occasions; nor did I
ever meet with a recent traveller who has. Dr. Thomson has made the
same remark, and when in Switzerland together we were assured by
Auguste Balmat, Francois Coutet, and other experienced Mont Blanc
guides, that they never witnessed these symptoms nor the blackness of
the sky, so frequently insisted upon by alpine travellers.] these
were chiefly Ghorkas (Nepalese). The Tibetan Dingpun and his guard
arrived last of all, he was a droll little object, short, fat, deeply
marked with small-pox, swarthy, and greasy; he was robed in a green
woollen mantle, and was perched on the back of a yak, which also
carried his bedding, and cooking utensils, the latter rattling about
its flanks, horns, neck, and every point of support: two other yaks
bore the tents of the party. His followers were tall savage looking
fellows, with broad swarthy faces, and their hair in short pig-tails.
They wore the long-sleeved cloak, short trousers, and boots, all of
thick woollen, and felt caps on their heads. Each was armed with a
long matchlock slung over his back, with a moveable rest having two
prongs like a fork, and a hinge, so as to fold up along the barrel,
when the prongs project behind the shoulders like antelope horns,
giving the uncouth warrior a droll appearance. A dozen cartridges,
each in an iron case, were slung round the waist, and they also wore
the long knife, flint, steel, and iron tobacco-pipe, pouch, and
purse, suspended to a leathern girdle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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