1871.] W. T. Blanford— Journey through SihHm. 385 



August 25th. A lovely morning, the first really fine one we had 

 had since leaving Phyiidong. From our position we could only see a 

 few peaks in the neighbourhood ; on one of these only there was snow. 

 It was probably Cliumanako, known in Darjiling as Chola.* We 

 had determined to march north along the range, as far as we could, 

 in the hopes that we might thus find a road to Lachung without 

 descending into the hot, steaming, leech-infested valley of the 

 Tista. Our course led north-west across a pine-clad valley, down which 

 to the south-west we had a view of the Nemi-Tso, one of the 

 largest and loveliest lakes in Sikkim, about 2 miles long, lying 

 in a deep gorge, all the sides of which are covered with dark pine 

 forest. Eeascending we came upon an open marshy plain, chiefly 

 a peat moss with a tarn in the middle ; evidently a lake bed 

 dammed at the end by a glacier moraine and nearly filled up. On 

 the drier grassy hillocks I found three kinds of butterflies,! tempt- 

 ed out by the fineness of the day. From the opposite end of the 

 marshy ground, a path leads eastward to the Gnatui-la, a pass said 

 to be intermediate in height between the Jelep-la and Yak-la, but 

 which is not much used for traffic. Rain now came on and after 

 climbing for 2 or 3 miles around the head of a deep ravine, we 

 halted at a spot called Sharab where some overhanging rocks, 

 forming a "lhap," or cave, afforded good shelter for our men. A 

 small stream running from a little lake close to our camp supplied 

 water, and our men had a wonderful power of discovering firewood 

 in most unpromising places. We here heard that the Raja of Sikkiui 

 was on his road to Chumanako, on the Sikkim side of the Chola, 

 to meet us, but that it was still two marches from the place where 

 we halted. 



Here we had an illustration of the short distance of all these 

 passes from Chumbi. We had despatched a man on the preceding 

 morning to fetch some flour. A messenger came with a bag of 

 flour about 2 o'clock in the day, and assured us that he had left 

 Chiimbi with it after the arrival of the messenger on the previous 



# Cho-la is the pass, Chamanako or Dobendikhan the peak north of it. 



f Parnassius Jacquemontii, a peculiar small variety of Satyrus Padma, and a 

 new species of Argynnis. I am indebted to Mr. W. S. Atkinson for the 

 names. 



49 



