112 LACHOONG VALLEY. Chap. XXII. 



at Lhassa. The grazing for yaks and small cattle is excellent 

 in Choombi, and the Finns excelsa is said to grow 

 abundantly there, though unknown in Sikkim, but I have 

 not heard of any other peculiarity in its productions. 



Very few plants grew amongst the stones at the top of the 

 Tunkra pass, and those few were mostly quite different from 

 those of Palung and Kongra Lama. A pink-floweerd 

 Arenaria, two kinds of Corydalis, the cottony Saussurea, and 

 diminutive primroses, were the most conspicuous.* The 

 wind was variable, blowing alternately up both valleys, 

 bringing much snow when it blew from the Teesta, though 

 deflected to a north-west breeze ; when, on the contrary, it 

 blew from Tibet, it was, though southerly, dry. Clouds 

 obscured all distant view. The temperature varied 

 between noon and 1*30 p.m. from 39° to 40° 5, the air 

 being extremely damp. 



Returning to the foot of the glacier, I took up my 

 quarters for two days under an enormous rock overlooking 

 the broad flat valley in which I had spent the previous 

 night, and directly fronting Tunkra mountain, which bore 

 north about five miles distant. This rock was sixty to 

 eighty feet high, and 15,250 feet above the sea; it was 

 of gneiss, and was placed on the top of a bleak ridge, 

 facing the north ; no shrub or bush being near it. The 

 gentle slope outwards of the rock afforded the only shelter, 

 and a more utterly desolate place than Lacheepia, as it 

 is called, I never laid my unhoused head in. It com- 

 manded an incomparable view due west across the 

 Lachoong and Lachen valleys, of the whole group of 

 Kinchinjunga snows, from Tibet southwards, and as such 

 was a most valuable position for geographical purposes. 



* The only others were Lcontopodium, Sedum, Saxifrage, Ranunculus hypcrboreus, 

 Ligularia, two species of Polygonum, a Trichostomum, Stcreocaidon, and Lecidea 

 geographica , not one grass or sedge. 



