CHAPTEE XII.
" s f - - s ^ s s s c
T e e ii ! ! l S g°in® t0 meet ^ j ^ -V i e w s in valley-Leaye for
r n " *f7 J'ee Hospitality—Murwa beer—Temples__
°f dead Superstitions—Cross Great Enn-
geet-Purchase of a dog-Marshes -Lamas-Dismiss Ghorkhas-
Bhotea house—Murwa beer. wnorjuias—
O n arriving at the bottom we found a party who
were teavellmg with sheep laden with salt; they told
ua t£at the Yalloong village, which lay up the valley
on the route to the Kanglanamo pass (leading over
the south shoulder of Kubra into Sikkim) was deserted,
the inhabitants having retired after the October fall of
snow to Yankutang, two inarches down; also that the
Kanglanamo pass was impracticable: I was, therefore
reluctantly obliged to abandon the plan of pursuing that
route to Sikkim, and to go south, following the west
flank of Singalelah to the first pass I might find open.
These people were very civil, and gave me a handiiil
of the root of one of the many bitter herbs called in
Bengal “ Teeta,” and used as a febrifuge: the present
one was that of Picrorhizct, a plant allied to Speedwell,
Much grows at from 12,000 to 15,000 feet elevation,
and is a powerful bitter. They had with them above
100 sheep, of a tall, long-legged, Eoman-nosed breed.
Each carried upwards of forty pounds of salt, done up
in two leather bags, slung on either side, and secured
by a band going over the chest, and another round the
loins, so that they cannot slip off, when going up or
down hill. These sheep are very tame, patient creatures,
travelling twelve miles a day with great ease,
and being indifferent to rocky ground.
December 7.—I ascended the Yalloong ridge to a
saddle 11,000 feet elevation, whence the road dips
south to the gloomy gorges of the eastern feeders of
the Tambur. Here I bade adieu to the grand alpine
scenery, and for several days my course lay through
Nepal in a southerly direction, parallel to Singalelah,
and crossing many spurs and rivers sent off by that
mighty range. The latter flow towards the Tambur,
and their beds for forty or fifty miles are elevated about
3500 feet. I ascended few of the spurs above 5000
feet, but all of them rise to above 12,000 feet to the
westward, where they join the Singalelah range.
Crossing a saddle of the Yalloong range, I clambered
to the top of a lofty hummock, through a dense thicket
of interwoven Ehododendron bushes, the clayey soil
under which was slippery from the quantity of dead
leaves. ' I had hoped for a view of the top of Kinchin-
junga, to the north-east, but it was enveloped in
clouds, as were all the snows in that direction; to