ANCIENT BOUNDARIES. 



which is guarded by the spirit ' Kiting.' On the east lies the ' ITas- 

 hGons' mountain. Its southern gate is ' Nagsharbhati,' which is 

 guarded by ' Ma-mGon-lCham-Bral-Yab-lDud.' Its western gate, 

 'ITimar mChhod-rTen,' is guarded by the terrible female spirit 

 ' Mamos.' The 'mDsod-lNga' mountains and the spirit 'Phra-Man- 

 dGe-Man ' of Zar guard it on the north." 



Dr. Oldfield, writing in 1858, makes the country subject to the 



Sikhim Rajas even more extensive: — "The hill 



SJcetchesfromNifal, country constituting the basin of the Kosi river is 



vol. 1, pp. 53-54. T-ii',i ° • Ti-ii ii A 



divided into two provinces or districts by the Aran 

 river. The district lying on the right bank of the Arun, and extending 

 between it and the Dud Kosi, is the country of the Kii-antis — a hill 

 tribe of low-caste Hindus, who once possessed considerable power and 

 territory in these eastern hills, but were speedily reduced to submis- 

 sion by Prithi Narayan after his conquest of Nipal. The district 

 lying on the eastern or left bank of the Arun, and extending from it 

 to Sikhim,* is Limbuana or the country of the 

 ^^*^i.e.. the Sikhim of Li^i^ug^ another tribe of low-caste Hindus. It 

 formerly belonged to Sikhim, but was conquered 

 and permanently annexed to Nipal by Prithi Narayan. Previous to 

 the Gorkha conquest of the valley of Nipal, the territories of the 

 Niwar Kings of Bhatgaon extended eastward to the Dud Kosi river, 

 which formed the boundary between the country of the Niwars and 

 the country of the Kirantis." 



The Hon'ble Mr. Ashley Eden in 1864 noticed that " Sikhim, 



though a very petty State then, was formerly afair- 



Pohhcal Mission to gj2ed country, reaching from the Arun river on the 



" "" "" west to the Taigon Pass on the east, from Tibet 



on the north to Kissengunge in Purneah on the south." 



In dealing with the reigns of the successive Sikhim Rajas it will be 

 seen how, by degrees, Sikhim lost the bulk of its original territory. 



The range of mountains that practically bound Sikhim on three 

 sides form a kind of horse-shoe, which constitutes the watershed of 

 the Rungeet and the Tista : while dependent spurs project from this 

 horse-shoe and serve as lateral barriers to the basins of the Rungeet 

 and the Tista's greater affluents, the Lachung, Lachen, Zemu, 

 Talung, Rongni, and Rungpo-Chu. These basins have a southward 

 slope, being broad at the top, where they leave the watershed, and 

 gradually contracting like a fan from its rim to the handle, which 

 is the Tista valley near Pashok. 



On or near the outer range, commencing from the south-east, are 

 the following peaks and passes: — 



Richila, 10,370. — The trijunction point of Darjeeling, Sikhim, 

 and Bhutan. 



