hills, prevented any view, except of the opposite
mountain face, which was clothed with a dense forest,
in which the wild Banana was conspicuous.
Towards evening we arrived at another cane-bridge,
still more dilapidated than the former, but similar in
structure. For a few hundred yards before reaching it,
we lost the path, and followed the precipitous face of
slate-rocks overhanging the stream, which dashed with
great violence below. Though we could not walk
comfortably, even with our shoes oif, the Lepchas,
bearing their enormous loads, proceeded with perfect
indifference.
Anxious to avoid sleeping at the bottom of the valley,
we crawled, very much fatigued, through burnt dry
forest, up a very sharp ridge, so narrow that the tent
sat astride on it, the ropes being fastened to the tops
of small trees on either slope. The ground swarmed
with black ants, which got into our tea, sugar, &c.,
while it was so covered with charcoal, that we were
soon begrimed. Our Lepchas preferred remaining on
the river-bank, whence they had to bring up water to
us, in great bamboo “ chungis,” as they are called.
The great dryness of this face is owing to its southern
exposure; the opposite mountains, equally high and
steep, being clothed in a rich green forest.
Our course down the river was by so rugged a path,
that, giddy and footsore with leaping from rock to
rock, we at last attempted the jungle, but it proved
utterly impervious. On turning a bend of the stream,
the mountains of Bhotan suddenly presented themselves,
with the Teesta flowing at their base; and we emerged
at the angle formed by the junction of the Rungeet,
which we had followed from the west, of the Teesta,
coming from the north, and of their united streams
flowing south.
We were not long before enjoying the water, when I
was surprised to find that of the Teesta singularly
cold, its temperature being 7° below that of the
Rungeet.* At the salient angle (a rocky peninsula) of
their junction, we could almost place one foot in the
cold stream and the other in the warmer. There is a
no less marked difference in the colour of the two
rivers; the Teesta being sea-green and muddy, the
Great Rungeet dark green and very clear; and the
waters, like those of the Arve and Rhone at Geneva,
preserve their colours for some hundred yards, the line
separating the two being most distinctly drawn. The
Teesta, or main stream, is much the broadest (about
80 or 100 yards wide at this season), most rapid and
deepest. The rocks which skirt its bank were covered
with a silt or mud deposit, which I nowhere observed
along the Great Rungeet, and which, as well as its colour
and coldness, was owing to the vast number of then
melting glaciers drained by this river. The Rungeet,
on the other hand, though it rises amongst the glaciers
of Kinchinjunga and its sister peaks, is chiefly supplied
by the rainfall of the outer ranges of Sinchul and
Singalelah, and hence its waters are clear, except during
the height of the rains.
This is, no doubt, due partly to the Teesta flowing south, and thus
having less of the sun, and partly to its draining snowy mountains throughout
a much longer portion of its course.
TOL. !. H