DARJEELING TO TONGLO. 53 
wheat of two species. "Phe white-flowered Rue seems to escape into the 
fields: it is certainly wild at an elevation of 4—9,000 feet, and is used 
commonly for all diseases of fowls (mixed with their food, as in 
England). Before leaving the base of the hills, the men cut the large 
bamboos for water-vessels (Choongis) to carry up the hill, none of the 
species found above this level being suited to that purpose. 
The ascent continues through dense jungle of Myrsine, Embelia, 
Cedrela, Gordonia, Aquilaria, and such tropical trees as I mentioned 
in the ascent from Punkabarrie to Kursiong. 
At noon we arrived at the Lama’s residence of Simonbong. Tt is 
one of the smallest and poorest Gumpas (or monasteries) in Sikkim.* 
Unlike the better class, it is built of wooden beams only, and consists 
of a single large room, raised on a stone foundation, roofed with 
shingles, and with small sliding shutter-windows. The temple is 
placed, as usual, on a narrow ridge or spur of the mountain, 
elevated about 4,000 feet: near it I observed one or two Lamas’ 
tombs, called Chaity,—they are cubes of stone-work, raised on a little 
terrace, about six feet square, surmounted by a hemisphere, which again 
is topped with a cone and ball. The devout of my party walked round 
each several times, always from right to left, repeating the ** Om mani 
Padmi hom," which was inscribed on a slab of slate, let into one face 
of the tomb. Lamas’ bodies are generally burned, on this side of the 
snowy range; while in Thibet they are exposed to the fowls of the air, or 
cut to pieces and distributed. Those of the Lamas on the banks of Lake 
Yarou are said to be always exposed, and the kites summoned by 
beating of gongs and blowing a trumpet made of a human thigh-bone. - 
'That bodies are exposed, and that the thigh-bone of a man is used for a 
horn, is true enough ; but the birds probably aecept other signals, less 
equivocal to their keen senses of sight and scent. 
At Simonbong (where we halted) the flora of the temperate regions 
commences. Two species of Bamboo (neither being the alpine) replace 
travels in Sikkim I have visited many, and been an inmate in the monasteries, and 
met with the greatest kindness and hospitality from the good fathers. AsIw- Dé — — 
first European who ever lived with the monks, this courtesy was the less to be — 
expected. T Campbell, who afterwards joined me, and in whose delightful society 
I visited other Lama establishments, records the same opinion of these - 
humoured people. 
te 
