Oct. 1849. KONGRA LAMA. ENTER TIBET. 155 



lustily for their companions ; when Campbell and the Lama 

 drew up at the chait of Kongra Lama, and announced 

 his wish to confer with their commandant. 



My anxiety was now wound up to a pitch ; I saw men 

 with matchlocks emerging from amongst the rocks under 

 Chomiomo, and despairing of permission being obtained, I 

 goaded my pony with heels and stick, and dashed on up 

 the Lachen valley, resolved to make the best of a splendid 

 day, and not turn back till I had followed the river to the 

 Cholamoo lakes. The Sepoys followed me a few paces, but 

 running being difficult at 16,000 feet, they soon gave up 

 the chase. 



A few miles ride in a north-east direction over an open, 

 undulating country, brought me to the Lachen, flowing 

 westwards in a broad, open, stony valley, bounded by 

 Kinchinjhow on the south, (its face being as precipitous as 

 that on the opposite side), and on the north by the Peuka- 

 thlo, a low range of rocky, sloping mountains, of which the 

 summits were 18,000 to 19,000 feet above the sea. 

 Enormous erratic blocks of gneiss strewed the ground, 

 which was sandy or gravelly, and cut into terraces along 

 the shallow, winding river, the green and sparkling waters 

 of which rippled over pebbles, or expanded into lagoons. 

 The already scanty vegetation diminished rapidly : it con- 

 sisted chiefly of scattered bushes of a dwarf scrubby honey- 

 suckle and tufts of nettle, both so brittle as to be trodden 

 into powder, and the short leafless twiggy Ephedra, a few 

 inches higher. The most alpine rhododendron {R. nivale) 

 spread its small rigid branches close to the ground ; the 

 hemispherical Arenaria, another type of sterility, rose here 

 and there, and tufts of Myosotis, Artemisia, Astragali, and 

 Aadrosace, formed flat cushions level with the soil. Grass was 

 very scarce, but a running wiry sedge {Car ex Moorcroftii) 



