animals were changing their long winter’s wool for
sleek hair, and the former hung about them in ragged
masses, like tow. Their calves gambolled by their
sides, the drollest of animals, kicking up their short
hind-legs, whisking their bushy tails in the air, rushing
up and down the grassy slopes, and climbing like cats
to the top of the rocks.
The Soubah and Phipun came early to take me to
Kongra Lama, bringing ponies, genuine Tartars in
bone and breed. Remembering the Dewan’s impracticable
saddle at Bhomsong, I stipulated for a horsecloth
or pad, upon which I had no sooner jumped than
the beast threw hack his ears, seated himself on his
haunches, and, to my consternation, slid backwards
down a turfy slope, pawing the earth as he went, and
leaving me on the ground, amid shrieks of laughter
from my Lepchas. My steed being caught, I again
mounted, when he took to shaking himself like a dog
till the pad slipped under his belly, and I was again
unhorsed. Other ponies displayed equal prejudices
against my mode of riding, or having my weight
anywhere but well on their shoulders, being all
powerful in their fore-quarters; so I was compelled to
adopt the high demi-pique saddle with short stirrups,
which forced me to sit with my knees up to my nose,
and to grip with the calves of my legs and heels. All
the gear was of yak or horse hair, and the bit was a
curb and ring, or a powerful twisted snaffle.
About six miles above Tungu, the Lachen meanders
along a broad stony bed, and the path rises over a great
ancient moraine, whose level top is covered with pools,
but both that and its south face are bare, from
exposure to the south wind, which blows with fury
through this contracted part of the valley to the
rarified atmosphere of the lofty, open, and dry country
beyond. Its north slope, on the contrary, is covered
with small trees and brushwood, of rh ododendron, birch,
honeysuckle, and mountain-ash. These are the most
northern shrubs in Sikkim, and I regarded them with
deep interest, as being possibly the last of their kind
to be met with in this meridian, for many degrees
further n o rth : perhaps even no similar shrubs occur
between this and the Siberian Altai, a distance of 1,500
miles.
At the foot of the moraine was a Tibetan camp
of black yak-hair tents, looking at a distance—(to
borrow M. Hue’s graphic simile)—like fat-bodied, long-
legged spiders ! Their general shape was hexagonal ;
they were about twelve feet in diameter, and were
stretched over six short posts, and encircled with a low
stone wall, except in front. In one of them I found a
buxom girl, the image of good humour, making butter
and curd from yak-milk. The churns were of two
kin d s; one being an oblong box of birch-bark, or close
bamboo wicker-work, full of branched rhododendron
twigs, in which the cream was shaken: she good-
naturedly showed me the inside, which was frosted
with snow-white butter, and alive with maggots. The
other churn was a goat-skin, which was rolled about,
and shaken by the four legs. The butter is made into
great squares, and packed in yak-hair cloths; the
curd is eaten either fresh, or dried and pulverised.