Junk, 1849. RAINS. LANDSLIPS AND AVALANCHES. 41 



men spend the whole day in loitering about, smoking, 

 and spinning wool : the women in active duties; a few 

 were engaged in drying the leaves of a shrub {JSynvplocoi) 

 for the Tibet market, which are used as a yellow dye ; 

 whilst, occasionally, a man might be seen cutting a spoon 

 or a yak-saddle out of rhododendron wood. 



During my stay at Lam ten g, the weather was all but 

 uniformly cloudy and misty, with drizzling rain, and a 

 southerly, or up-valley wind, during the day, which changed 

 to an easterly one at night : occasionally distant thunder 

 was heard. My rain-gauges showed very little rain com- 

 pared with what fell at Dorjiling during the same period ; 

 the clouds were thin, both sun and moon shining through 

 them, without, however, the former warming the soil : 

 hence my tent was constantly wet, nor did I once sleep 

 in a dry bed till the 1st of June, which ushered in the 

 month with a brilliant sunny day. At night it generally 

 rained in torrents, and the roar of landslips and avalanches 

 was then all but uninterrupted for hour after hour : some- 

 times it was a rumble, at others a harsh grating sound, 

 and often accompanied with the crashing of immense timber- 

 trees, or the murmur of the distant snowy avalanches. The 

 amount of denudation by atmospheric causes is here quite 

 incalculable ; and I feel satisfied that the violence of the 

 river at this particular part of its course (where it traverses 

 those parts of the valleys which are most snowy and 

 rainy), is proximately due to impediments thus accumu- 

 lated in its bed. 



It was sometimes clear at sunrise, and I made many 

 ascents of Tukcham, hoping for a view of the mountains 

 towards the passes ; but I was only successful on one 

 occasion, when I saw the table top of Kinchinjhow, the 

 most remarkable, and one of the most distant peaks of 



