stems and heads of flowers through the soil together:
and lastly, tree-ferns grow associated with the brake
and Lycopodium of our British moors; and amongst
mosses, the superb Himalayan Lyellia crispa, with the
English Funaria hygrometrica.
The dense jungles of Chakoong completely cover
the beautiful flat terraces of sand and gravel, which
rise in three shelves to 150 feet above the river, and
whose edges appear as sharply cut as if the latter had
but lately retired from them. Everywhere immense
boulders are scattered about, some of which are sixty
feet lo n g : their surfaces are water-worn into hollows,
proving the river to have cut through nearly 300 feet
of deposit, which once floored its valley. Lower down
the valley, and fully 2000 feet above the river, I had
passed numerous angular blocks resting on gentle
slopes where no land-slips could possibly have deposited
them, and which I therefore refer to ancient
glacial action; one of these was nearly square, eighty
feet long, and ten high.
I t is a remarkable fact, that this hot, damp gorge is
never malarious ; this is attributable to the coolness of
the river, and to the water on the flats not stagnating;
for at Choongtam, 1500 feet higher, fevers and ague
prevail in summer on similar flats, but which have been
cleared of jungle, and are therefore exposed to the sun.
I had had constant headache for several mornings
on waking, which I did not fail to attribute to coming
fever, or to the unhealthiness of the climate; till I
accidentally found it to arise from the wormwood (the
common English Artemisia vulgaris), upon a thick couch
of the cut branches of which I was accustomed to sleep,
and which in dry weather produced no such effects.
From Chakoong to Choongtam the route lay northwards,
following the course of the river, or crossing
steep spurs that dip into the valley, and leave no space
between their perpendicular sides and the furious
torrent. Immense land-slips seamed the steep mountain
flanks ; and we crossed with precipitation one that
extended fully 4000 feet (and perhaps much more)
up a mountain 12,000 feet h ig h ; it moves every year,
and the mud ‘and rocks shot down by it were strewn
with the green leaves and twigs of shrubs, some of the
flowers on which were yet fresh and bright, while
others were crushed: these were mixed with gigantic
trunks of pines, with ragged bark and scored timbers.
The talus which had lately been poured into the valley
formed a gently sloping bank, twenty feet high, over
which the Lachen-Lachoong rolled from a pool above,
caused by the damming up of its waters. On either
side of the pool were cultivated terraces, fifty feet high,
whose alder-fringed banks, joined by an elegant cane-
bridge, were reflected in the placid water; forming a
little spot of singular quiet and beauty, that contrasted
with the savage grandeur of the surrounding mountains,
and the headstrong course of the foaming
torrent below, amid whose deafening roar it was
impossible to speak and be heard.
The mountain behind Choongtam is about 10,000
feet h ig h ; it divides the Lachen from the Lachoong
river, and terminates a range that runs for twenty-
two miles south from the lofty mountain of Kinchinjhow.