Himalayan Journals — Volume 2: Or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc.Hooker, Joseph Dalton
History
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
At a fork of the valley several miles above Yeumtong, and below the
great glacier of Chango Khang, the ancient moraines are prodigious,
much exceeding any I have elsewhere seen, both in extent, in the size
of the boulders, and in the height to which the latter are piled on
one another. Many boulders I measured were twenty yards across, and
some even forty; and the chaotic scene they presented baffles all
description: they were scantily clothed with stunted silver firs.
Beyond this, the path crosses the river, and ascends rapidly over a
mile of steeply sloping landslip, composed of angular fragments of
granite, that are constantly falling from above, and are extremely
dangerous. At 14,000 feet, trees and shrubs cease, willow and
honeysuckle being the last; and thence onward the valley is bleak,
open, and stony, with lofty rocky mountains on either side. The south
wind brought a cold drizzling rain, which numbed us, and two of the
lads who had last come up from Dorjiling were seized with a remittent
fever, originally contracted in the hot valleys; luckily we found
some cattle-sheds, in which I left them, with two men to attend
on them.
Momay Samdong is situated in a broad part of the Lachoong valley,
where three streams meet; it is on the west of Chango Khang, and is
six miles south-east of Kinchinjhow, and seven south-west of Donkia:
it is in the same latitude as Palung, but scarcely so lofty. The mean
of fifty-six barometrical observations contemporaneous with Calcutta
makes it 15,362 feet above the sea; nearly the elevation of Lacheepia
(near the Tunkra pass), from which, however, its scenery and
vegetation entirely differ.
I pitched my tent close to a little shed, at the gently sloping base
of a mountain that divided the Lachoong river from a western
tributary. It was a wild and most exposed spot: long stony mountains,
grassy on the base near the river; distant snowy peaks, stupendous
precipices, moraines, glaciers, transported boulders, and rocks
rounded by glacial action, formed the dismal landscape which
everywhere met the view. There was not a bush six inches high, and
the only approach to woody plants were minute creeping willows and
dwarf rhododendrons, with a very few prostrate junipers
and _Ephedra._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account