July, 1849. TIBET TENTS, CHURNS, &c. 77 



last of their kind to be met with in this meridian, for many 

 degrees further north : perhaps even no similar shrubs occur 

 between this and the Siberian Altai, a distance of 1,500 

 miles. The magnificent yellow cowslip {Primula Sikkim~ 

 ensis) gilded the marshes, and Caltha* Trottius, Anemone, 

 Arenaria, Draba, Saxifrages, Potentillas, Ranunculus, and 

 other very alpine plants abounded. 



At the foot of the moraine was a Tibetan camp of broad, 

 black, yak-hair tents, stretched out with a complicated 

 system of ropes, and looking at a distance — (to borrow 

 M. Hue's graphic simile) — like fat-bodied, long-legged 

 spiders ! Their general shape is hexagonal, about twelve 

 feet either way, and they are stretched over six short posts, 

 and encircled with a low stone wall, except in front. In 

 one of them I found a buxom girl, the image of good 

 humour, making butter and curd from yak-milk. The 

 churns were of two kinds ; one being an oblong box of 

 birch-bark, or close bamboo wicker-work, full of branched 

 rhododendron twigs, in which the cream is shaken : she 

 good-naturedly showed me the inside, which was frosted 

 with snow-white butter, and alive with maggots. The 

 other churn was a goat-skin, which was rolled about, and 

 shaken by the four legs. The butter is made into great 

 squares, and packed in yak-hair cloths ; the curd is eaten 

 either fresh, or dried and pulverised (when it is called 

 " Ts'cheuzip "). 



Except bamboo and copper milk-vessels, wooden ladles, 

 tea-churn, and pots, these tents contained no furniture but 

 goat-skins and blankets, to spread on the ground as a bed. 

 The fire was made of sheep and goats'-droppings, lighted 

 with juniper- wood ; above it hung tufts of yaks' -hair, one 



* This is the C. scaposa, n. sp. The common Caltha palustris, or "marsh 

 marigold " of England, which is not found in Sikkim, is very abundant in the 

 north-west Himalaya. 



