to the bottom of the steaming bamboo jug and held it
to my mouth, then placing it by my side, he bowed and
withdrew. Nothing can be more fascinating than the
simple manners of these kind people, who really love
hospitality, and make the stranger feel himself
welcome. Just now too, the Durbar had ordered every
attention to be paid me; and I hardly passed a village,
however small, without receiving a present; or a
cottage, where beer was not offered. This I found a
most grateful beverage; and of the occasional rests
under leafy screens during a hot day’s march, and sips
at the bamboo jug, X shall ever retain a grateful remembrance.
Happily the liquor is very weak, and except
by swilling, as my friend the Kajee did, it would be
impossible to get fuddled by it.
At Pemiongclii a superior Lama met me with another
overwhelming present: he was a most jolly fat monk,
shaven and girdled, and dressed in a scarlet gown : my
Lepchas kotowed to him, and he blessed them by the
laying on of hands.
Hence we descended suddenly to the Great Rungeet,
which we reached at its junction with the Kulhait: the
path was very steep and slippery, and led along the
side of an enormous Mendong,* which ran down the
hill for several hundred yards, and had a large chait at
each end, with several smaller ones at intervals.
Throughout its length were innumerable inscriptions
* This remarkable structure, called the Kaysing Mendong, is 200 yards
long, 10 feet high, and 6 or 8 feet broad ; it is built of flat, slaty stones,
and both faces are covered ■with inscribed slates, of which there are upwards
of 700. A tall stone, nine feet high, covered also with inscriptions,
terminates it at the lower end.
I W . WHYMPER.
PEMIONGOHI GOOMPA AND CHAITS.
buried, the richer burned, and their ashes scattered or
interred, but not in graves proper, of which there are
none. Nor are there any signs of interment throughout
Sikkim ; though chaits are erected to the memory of
the departed, they have no necessary connection with
the remains. Corpses in Sikkim are never cut to