I spent three days in exploring the neighbourhood of Nyenyam, while Wollaston was engaged in his botanical and zoological pursuits. Gujjar Singh, with the plane-table, was detained by bad weather higher up the valley. Below Nyenyam the river enters a very deep, narrow gorge; pines and other forest trees begin to appear. The road, which here becomes impassable for animals, crosses the river four times in 6 miles by cantilever bridges before reaching the village of Choksum, but I could find no trace of the portion described by explorer Hari Ram in 1871 as consisting of slabs of stone 9 to 18 inches wide supported on iron pegs let into the vertical face of the rock at a height of 1,500 feet above the river. At Choksum (10,500 feet) the river falls at an average rate of 500 feet per mile. The Nepal frontier is crossed near Dram village, some 10 miles further down stream, but owing to the vile state of the weather, which rendered even the roughest attempts at surveying impossible, I abandoned all idea of reaching the spot. On July 20 we retraced our steps 9 miles up the valley to Tashishong, where we found Dr. Heron encamped, together with Gujjar Singh, whose work had been hung up for a week by continued cloud and rainfall. Heron returned Northwards next day, while we followed a rough easterly track leading over the Lapche Range to the village of the same name in the valley of the Kang Chu. The weather on this day was atrocious, and our last pretence of accurate surveying broke down. We were unable to reach Lapche village by dusk, and spent a somewhat cheerless night on boulders in drenching rain at 14,600 feet, with no fuel except a few green twigs of dwarf rhododendron. Lapche (La-Rimpoche, "precious hill") is sacred as the home and birthplace of Jetsun Mila Repa, a wandering lama and saint who lived in Southern Tibet in the eleventh century, and who taught by parables and songs, some of which have considerable literary merit. The two principal works ascribed to him are an autobiography, or namtar, and a collection of tracts called Labum, or the "myriad songs." They are still among the most popular books in Tibet.[20] His hermit-cell still remains under a rock on the hillside, and his memory is preserved by an ancient temple and monastery, the resort of numerous pilgrims, alongside which we pitched our tents. [20] _Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet_, by S. C. Dass, C.I.E., page 205, footnote by Hon. W. W. Rockhill.