18 LACHEN-LACHOONG VALLEY. Chap. XVIII. 



small as to be barely visible without a microscope. We 

 daily arrived at our camping-ground, streaming with blood, 

 and mottled with the bites of peepsas, gnats, midges, and 

 mosquitos, besides being infested with ticks. 



As the rains advanced, insects seemed to be called into 

 existence in countless swarms; large and small moths, cock- 

 chafers, glow-worms, and cockroaches, made my tent a 

 Noah's ark by night, when the candle was burning; together 

 with winged ants, May-flies, flying earwigs, and many 

 beetles, while a very large species of Tipula (daddy-long-legs) 

 swept its long legs across my face as I wrote my journal, 

 or plotted off my map. After retiring to rest and putting 

 out the light, they gradually departed, except a few 

 which could not find the way out, and remained to disturb 

 my slumbers. 



Chakoong is a remarkable spot in the bottom of the 



valley, at an angle of the Lachen-Lachoong, which here 



receives an affluent from Gnarem, a mountain 17,557 feet 



high, on the Chola range to the east.* There is no village, 



but some grass huts used by travellers, which are built 



close to the river on a very broad flat, fringed with alder, 



hornbeam, and birch : the elevation is 4,400 feet, and many 



European genera not found about Dorjiling, and belonging 



to the temperate Himalaya, grow intermixed with tropical 



plants that are found no further north. The birch, willow, 



alder, and walnut grow side by side with wild plantain, 



Erythrina, Wattichia palm, and gigantic bamboos: the 



Cedrela Toona, figs, Melastoma, Scitaminece, balsams, 



Pothos, peppers, and gigantic climbing vines, grow mixed 



with brambles, speedwell, Paris, forget-me-not, and nettles 



* This is called Black Rock in Col. Waugh's map. I doubt Gnarem being a 

 generally known name : the people hardly recognise the mountain as sufficiently 

 conspicuous to hear a name. 



