July, 1849. KONGRA LAMA TASS. 81 



Lachen was 47°, which was remarkably high. We were 

 bitterly cold ; as the previous rain had wetted us through, 

 and a keen wind was blowing up the valley. The con- 

 tinued mist and fog intercepted all view, except of the flanks 

 of the great mountains on either hand, of the rugged snowy 

 ones to the south, and of those bounding the Lachen to the 

 north. The latter were unsnowed, and appeared lower 

 than Kongra Lama, the ground apparently sloping away in 

 that direction ; but when T ascended them, three months 

 afterwards, I found they were 3000 feet higher ! a proof 

 how utterly fallacious are estimates of height, when 

 formed by the eye alone. My informants called them 

 Peuka-t 'hlo ; " pen ' signifies north in Tibetan, and 

 " t'hlo " a hill in Lepcha. 



Isolated patches of vegetation appeared on the top of 

 the pass, where I gathered forty kinds of plants, most of 

 them being of a tufted habit characteristic of an extreme 

 climate- some (as species of Caryojjlit/Hca') forming hemi- 

 spherical balls on the naked soil ; others * growing in matted 

 tufts level with the ground. The greater portion had no 

 woolly covering ; nor did I find any of the cottony species 

 of Saiissurea, which are so common on the wetter mountains 

 to the southward. Some most delicate-flowered plants 

 even defy the biting winds of these exposed regions ; such 

 are a prickly Mecouojjsis with slender flower-stalks and 

 four large blue poppy-like petals, a Cyananthus with a 

 membranous bell-shaped corolla, and a fritillary. Other 

 curious plants were a little yellow saxifrage with long 

 runners (very like the arctic S. Jiagellaris, of Spitzbergen 



* The other plants found on the pass were ; of smooth hairless ones, Ranunculus, 

 Fumitory, several species of Stellaria, Arenaria, Cruel fene, Pamassia, Marina, 

 saxifrages, Sedum, primrose, fferminium f Polygon/urn, Campanula, UvileUifcra>, 

 grasses and Cariees: of woolly or hairy ones, Anemone, Artemisia, AJyosotis, 

 Draba, Potentilla, and several Compos'dw, &c. 



VOL. II. G 



