features on their flanks not visible to the naked eye,
and by the most careful levellings with the theodolite,
they were depressed below the horizon of Bhomtso,
whence the distance must be above 100 miles.
The transparency of the pale blue atmosphere of
these lofty regions can hardly be described, nor the
clearness and precision with which the most distant
objects are projected against the sky. From having
afterwards measured peaks 210 miles distant from the
Khasia mountains, I feel sure that I underrated the
estimates made at Bhomtso, and I have no hesitation
in saying, that the mean elevation of the sparingly-
snowed* watershed between the Yaru and Arun will be
found to be greater than that of the snowy Himalaya
south of it, and to follow the chain running from
Donkia, north of the Arun, along the Kiang-lah mountains,
towards the Nepal frontier, at Tingri Maidan.
No part of that watershed perhaps rises so high as
24,000 feet,but its lowest elevation is probably nowhere
under 18,000 feet.
This broad belt of lofty country, horth of the snowy
Himalaya, is the Dingcham province of Tibet, and
. * Were the snow-level in this part of Tibet country as low as it is in
Sikkim, the whole from Donkia almost to the Yaru-Tsampu river would
he everywhere intersected by glaciers and other impassable barriers of snow
and ice, for a breadth of fifty miles, and the country would have no
parallel for amount of snow beyond the Polar circles. It is impossible to
conjecture what would have been the effects on the climate of northern
India and central Asia under these conditions. When, however, we
reflect upon the evidences of glacial phenomena that abound in all the
Himalayan valleys at and above 9000 feet elevation, it is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that such a state of things once existed, and that at a
geologically very recent period.
skirts the frontier of Sikkim, Bhotan, and Nepal. I t
gives rise to all the Himalayan rivers, and its mean
elevation is probably 15,000 fe e t: its general appearance,
as seen from greater heights, is that of a much
less mountainous country than the snowy and wet
Himalayan regions; this is because its mean elevation
is so enormous, that ranges of 20,000 to 22,000 feet
appear low and insignificant upon it. The absence of
forest and other obstructions to the view, the breadth
and flatness of the valleys, and the undulating character
of the lower ranges that traverse its surface,
give it a comparatively level appearance, and suggest
the term “ plains ” to the Tibetan, when comparing his
country with the complicated ridges of the deep Sikkim
valleys. Here one may travel for many miles without
rising or falling 3000 feet, yet never descending below
14,000 feet, partly because the flat winding valleys
are followed in preference to exhausting ascents, and
partly because the passes are seldom more than that
elevation above the valleys ; whereas, in Sikkim, rises
and descents of 6000, and even 9000 feet, are met
with in passing from valley to valley, sometimes in one
day’s march.
The swarthy races of Dingcham are an honest,
hospitable, and very hardy people, differing from the
northern Tibetans chiefly in colour, and in invariably
wearing the pigtail, which MM. Hue and Gabet assure
us is not usual in Lhassa.* They are a pastoral race,
* Amongst Lhassau customs alluded to by these travellers, is that of
the women smearing their faces with a black pigment, the objeet of which
they affirm to be that they may render themselves odious to the male
sex, and thus avoid temptation. The custom is common enough, but the