Dec. 1848. YANGMA VILLAGE. 239 



brown with scanty vegetation, the vast moraines, the 

 ridges of glacial debris, the flat terraces, marking, as it 

 were with parallel roads, the bluff sides of the mountains, 

 the enormous boulders perched upon them, and strewed 

 everywhere around, the little Boodhist monuments of 

 quaint, picturesque shapes, decorated with poles and 

 banners, the many-coloured dresses of the people, the 

 brilliant blue of the cloudless heaven by day, the depth of 

 its blackness by night, heightened by the light of the stars, 

 that blaze and twinkle with a lustre unknown in less 

 lofty regions : all these were subjects for contemplation, 

 rendered more impressive by the stillness of the atmosphere, 

 and the silence that reigned around. The village seemed 

 buried in repose throughout the day : the inhabitants 

 had already hybernated, their crops were stored, the curd 

 made and dried, the passes closed, the soil frozen, the 

 winter's stock of fuel housed, and the people had retired 

 into the caverns of their half subterranean houses, to 

 sleep, spin wool, and think of Boodh, if of anything at all, 

 the dead, long winter through. The yaks alone can find 

 anything to do : so long as any vegetation remains they 

 roam and eat it, still vieldino; milk, which the women take 

 morning and evening, when their shrill whistle and cries 

 are heard for a feAV minutes, as they call the grunting 

 animals. No other sounds, save the harsh roar and hollow 

 echo of the falling rock, glacier, or snow-bed, disturbed the 

 perfect silence of the day or night.* 



I had taken three days' food to Yangma, and stayed there 

 as long as it lasted : the rest of my provisions I had left 

 below the first moraine, where a lateral valley leads east 

 over the Xango pass to the Kambachen valley, which lay 

 on the route back to Sikkim. 



* Snow cover* the ground at Yangma from December till April,, and the falls 

 are said to be very heavy, at times amounting to 12 feet in depth. 



