84 



PALUNG. Chap. XXI. 



The rocks were gneiss, with granite veins (strike north- 

 east, dip south-east) : they were covered with Ephedra* 

 an Onosma which yields a purple dye, Orchis] and species 

 of Androsace ; while the slopes were clothed with the 

 spikenard and purple Pedicularis, and the moist grounds 

 with yellow cowslip and long grass. A sudden bend in 

 the valley opened a superb view to the north, of the full 

 front of Kmchinjhow, extending for four or five miles east 

 and west ; its perpendicular sides studded with the immense 

 icicles, which are said to have obtained for it the name 

 of "jhow,"— the "bearded" Kinchin. Eastward a jagged 

 spur stretches south, rising into another splendid mountain, 

 called Chango-khang (the Eagle's crag), from whose flanks 

 descend great glaciers, the sources of the Tunguchoo. 



We followed the course of an affluent, called the Cha- 

 choo, along whose bed ancient moraines rose in successive 

 ridges : on these I found several other species of European 

 genera. + Over one of these moraines, 500 feet high, the 

 path ascends to the plains of Palling, an elevated grassy 

 expanse, two miles long and four broad, extending south- 

 ward from the base of Kinchiujhow. Its surface, though 

 very level for so mountainous a country, is yet varied with 

 open valleys and sloping hills, 500 to 700 feet high : it 

 is bounded on the west by low rounded spurs from 

 Kinchiujhow, that form the flank of the Lachen valley ; 

 while on the east it is separated from Chango-khang by 

 the Chachoo, which cuts a deep east and west trench along 

 the base of Kinchiujhow, and then turns south to the 



* A curious genus of small shrubs allied to pines, that grows in the south of 

 Europe. This species is the European E. vulgaris ; it inhabits the driest parts of 

 north-west India, and ascends to 17,000 feet in Tibet, but is not found in the 

 moist intervening countries. 



f Delphinium, Hypecoum, Sagina, Gymnandra, A rtemisia, Caltha, Dracocephalum, 

 Leontopodium. 



1 



