100 LACHOONG VALLEY. Chap. XXI. 



second;* its temperature was also 57°. These streams 

 retain an extraordinary velocity, for many miles upwards ; 

 the Lachen to its junction with the Zemu at 9000 feet, 

 and the Zemu itself as far up as the Thlonok, at 10,000 

 feet, and the Lachoong to the village of that name, at 8000 

 feet : their united streams appear equally rapid till they 

 become the Teesta at Singtam. f 



On the 15th of August, having received supplies from 

 Dorjiling, I started up the north bank of the Lachoong, 

 following the Singtam Soubah, who accompanied me 

 officially, and with a very bad grace ; poor fellow, he 

 expected me to have returned with him to Singtam, and 

 thence gone back to Dorjiling, and many a sore struggle 

 we had on this point. At Choongtam he had been laid up 

 with ulcerated legs from the bites of leeches and sand-flies, 

 which required my treatment. 



The path was narrow, and ran through a jungle of 

 mixed tropical and temperate plants,! many of which are 

 not found at this elevation on the damp outer ranges of 

 Dorjiling. We crossed to the south bank by a fine cane- 

 bridge forty yards long, the river being twenty-eight across : 

 and here I have to record the loss of my clog Kinchin ; the 

 companion of all my late journeyings, and to whom I had 

 become really attached. He had a bad habit, of which I 



* Hence it appears that the Lachoong, being so much the more copious stream, 

 should in one sense be regarded as the continuation of the Teesta, rather than the 

 Lachen, which, however, has by far the most distant source. Their united streams 

 discharge upwards of 10,000 cubic feet of water per second in the height of the 

 rains ! which is, however, a mere fraction of the discharge of the Teesta when 

 that river leaves the Himalaya. The Ganges at Hurdwar discharges 8000 feet 

 per second during the dry season. 



t The slope of the bed of the Lachen from below the confluence of the Zemu 

 to the village of Singtam is 174 feet per mile, or 1 foot in 30 ; that of the Lachoong 

 from the village of that name to Singtam is considerably less. 



+ As Paris, Dipsacus, Circcea, Thalictrum, Saxifraga ciliaris, Spiranthes, Malva, 

 Hypoxis, Anthericum, Passiflora, Drosera, Didymocaipus, poplar, Calamagrostis, and 

 Eapatorium. 



