July, 1849. TALLUM VILLAGE. MOUNTAINS AROUND. 67 



received me at the bridge (Samdong), at Tallum, and led 

 me across the river (into Cheen they affirmed) to a pretty 

 green sward, near some gigantic gneiss boulders, where I 

 camped, close by the river, and 11,480 feet above the sea. 



The village of Tallum consists of a few wretched stone 

 . huts, placed in a broad part of the valley, which is swampy, 

 and crossed by several ancient moraines, which descend 

 from the gulleys on the east flank.* The cottages are from 

 four to six feet high, without windows, and consist of a 

 single apartment, containing neither table, chair, stool, nor 

 bed ; the inmates huddle together amid smoke, filth, and 

 darkness, and sleep on a plank ; and their only utensils are 

 a bamboo churn, copper, bamboo, and earthenware vessels, 

 for milk, butter, &c. 



Grassy or stony mountains slope upwards, at an angle of 

 20°,f from these flats to 15,000 feet, but no snow is 

 visible, except on Kinchinjhow and Chomiomo, about fifteen 

 miles up the valley. Both these are flat-topped, and daz- 

 zlingly white, rising into small peaks, and precipitous on all 

 sides ; they are grand, bold, isolated masses, quite unlike 

 the ordinary snowy mountains in form, and far more 

 imposing even than Kinchinjunga, though not above 22,000 

 feet in elevation. 



Herbaceous plants are much more numerous here than 

 in any other part of Sikkim ; and sitting at my tent-door, 

 I could, without rising from the ground, gather forty-three 

 plants, { of which all but two belonged to English genera. 



* I have elsewhere noticed that in Sikkim, the ancient moraines above 9000 

 feet are almost invariably deposited from valleys opening to the westward. 



+ At Lamteng and up the Zemu the slopes are 40° and 50°, giving a widely 

 different aspect to the valleys. 



£ In England thirty is, on the average, the equivalent number of plants, which 

 in favourable localities I have gathered in an equal space. In both cases many 

 are seedlings of short-lived annuals, and in neither is the number a test of the 

 luxuriance of the vegetation ; it but shows the power which the different species 

 exert in their struggle to obtain a place. 



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