Oct. 1819. TIBET ANIMALS. FALSE SUNSET. 173 



the hare bounding over the stony soil, the antelope scouring 

 the sandy flats, and the fox stealing along to his burrow, 

 are all desert and Tartarian types of the animal creation. 

 The shrill whistle of the marmot alone breaks the silence 

 of the scene, recalling the snows of Lapland to the mind j 

 the kite and raven wheel through the air, 1000 feet over 

 head, with as strong and steady a pinion as if that atmo- 

 sphere possessed the same power of resistance that it does 

 at the level of the sea. Still higher in the heavens, long 

 black V-shaped trains of wild geese cleave the air, shooting 

 over the glacier-croAvned top of Kinchinjhow, and winging 

 their flight in one day, perhaps, from the Yaru to the 

 Ganges, over 500 miles of space, and through 22,000 feet 

 of elevation. One plant alone, the yellow lichen (Borrera), 

 is found at this height, and only as a visitor ; for, Tartar- 

 like, it emigrates over these lofty slopes and ridges, 

 blown about by the violent winds. I found a small beetle 

 on the very top,* probably blown up also, for it was a 

 flower-feeder, and seemed benumbed with cold. 



Every night that we spent in Tibet, we enjoyed a 

 magnificent display of sunbeams converging to the east, 

 and making a false sunset. I detailed this phenomenon 

 when seen from the Kymore mountains, and I repeatedly 

 saw it again in the Khasia, but never in the Sikkim 

 Himalaya, whence I assume that it is most frequent in 

 mountain plateaus. As the sun set, broad purple beams 

 rose from a dark, low, leaden bank on the eastern horizon, 

 and spreading up to the zenith, covered the intervening 

 space : they lasted through the twilight, from fifteen to 

 twenty minutes, fading gradually into the blackness of 



* I observed a small red Acarus (mite) at this elevation, both on Donkia and 

 Kinchinjhow, which reminds me that I found a species of the same genus at 

 Cockburn Island (in latitude 64° south, longitude 64° 41) west). This genus hence 

 inhabits a higher southern latitude than any other land animal attains. 



