166 TIBET. Chap. XXIV. 



than 20,000 feet without snow. Over this spur the cele- 

 brated Chumulari * peeps, bearing south-east, and from its 

 isolated position and sharpness looking low and small ; it 

 appeared quite near, though thirty-nine miles distant. 



North-east of Chumulari, and far beyond it, are several 

 meridional ranges of very much loftier snowy mountains, 

 which terminated the view of the snowy Himalaya ; the 

 distance embraced being fully 150 miles, and perhaps much 

 more. Of one of these eastern masses f I afterwards took 



* Some doubt still hangs over the identity of this mountain, chiefly owing to 

 Turner's having neglected to observe his geographical positions. I saw a much 

 loftier mountain than this, bearing from Bhomtso north 87° east, and it was called 

 Chumulari by the Tibetan Sepoys ; but it does not answer to Turner's description 

 of an isolated snowy peak, such as he approached within three miles ; and though 

 in the latitude he assigned to it, is fully sixty miles to' the east of his route. A 

 peak, similar to the one he describes, is seen from Tonglo and Sinchul (see vol. i. 

 pp. 125 and 185) ; this is the one alluded to above, and it is identified by both 

 Tibetans and Lepchas at Dorjiling as the true Chumulari, and was measured by 

 Colonel Waugh, who placed it in lat. 27° 49' north, long. 89° 18' east. The latter 

 position, though fifteen miles south of what Turner gives it, is probably correct ; 

 as Pemberton found that,Turner had put other places in Bhotan twenty miles too 

 far north. Moreover, in saying that it is visible from Purnea in the plains of 

 Bengal, Turner refers to Kinchinjunga, whose elevation was then unknown. 

 Dr. Campbell ("Bengal As. Soc. Jour.," 1848), describes Chumulari from oral 

 information, as an isolated mountain encircled by twenty-one goompas, and per- 

 ambulated by pilgrims in five days ; the Lachoong Phipun, on the other hand, 

 who was a Lama, and well acquainted with the country, affirmed that Chumulari 

 has many tops, and cannot be perambulated ; but that detached peaks near it may 

 be, and that it is to a temple near one of these that pilgrims resort. Again, the 

 natives use these names very vaguely, and as that of Kinchinjunga is often applied 

 equally to all or any part of the group of snows between the Lachen and Tambur 

 rivers, so may the term Chumulari have been used vaguely to Captain Turner or 

 to me. I have been told that an isolated, snow-topped, venerated mountain rises 

 about twenty miles south of the true Chumulari, and is called " Sakya-khang " 

 (Sakya's snowy mountain), which may be that seen from Dorjiling; but I incline to 

 consider Campbell's and Waugh's mountain as the one alluded to by Turner, and 

 it is to it that I here refer as bearing north 115° 30' east from Bhomtso. 



+ These are probably the Ghassa mountains of Turner's narrative : bearings 

 which I took of one of the loftiest of them, from the Khasia mountains, 

 together with those from Bhomtso, would appear to place it in latitude 

 28° 10' and longitude 90°, and 200 miles from the former station, and 90° east of 

 the latter. Its elevation from Bhomtso angles is 24,160 feet. I presume I also 

 saw Chumulari from the Khasia ; the most western peak seen thence being 

 in the direction of that mountain. Captain R Strachey has most kindly 



