Aug. 1849. LACHEEPLY. GROUSE. 113 



The night was misty, and though the temperature was 35°, 

 I was miserably cold ; for my blankets being laid on the 

 bare ground, the chill seemed to strike from the rock to the 

 very marrow of my bones. In the morning the fog hung 

 till sunrise, when it rose majestically from all the mountain- 

 tops ; but the view obtained was transient, for in less than 

 an hour the dense woolly banks of fog which choked the 

 valleys ascended like a curtain to the warmed atmosphere 

 above, and slowly threw a veil over the landscape. I 

 waited till the last streak of snow was shut out from my 

 view, when I descended, to breakfast on Himalayan grouse 

 {Tetrao-perdix nivicold), a small gregarious bird which 

 inhabits the loftiest stony mountains, and utters a short 

 cry of " Quiok, quiok ; ' in character and appearance it 

 is intermediate between grouse and partridge, and is good 

 eating, though tough. 



Hoping to obtain another view, which might enable me 

 to correct the bearings taken that morning, I was tempted 

 to spend a second night in the open air at Lacheepia, 

 passing the clay botanizing * in the vicinity, and taking 

 observations of the barometer and wet-bulb : I also boiled 

 three thermometers by turns, noting the grave errors likely 

 to attend observations of this instrument for elevation. f 

 Little rain fell during the day, but it was heavy at night, 

 though there was fortunately no wind ; and I made a more 

 comfortable bed with tufts of juniper brought up from 

 below. Our fire was principally of wet rhododendron wood, 



* Scarcely a grass, and no Astragali, grow on these stony and snowy slopes : and 

 the smallest heath-like Andromeda, a still smaller Menziesia (an arctic genus, 

 previously unknown in the Himalaya) and a prostrate willow, are the only woody- 

 stemmed plants above 15,000 feet. 



f These will be more particularly alluded to in the Appendix, where will be 

 found a comparison of elevations, deduced from boiling-point and from barometric 

 observations. The height of Lacheepia is 14,912 feet by boiling-point, and 

 15,262 feet by barometer. 



VOL. it. I 



