342 SIKKIM HIMALAYA. Chap. XV. 



and then ascended a very steep mountain called " Mon 

 Lepcha." Immense detached masses of gneiss, full of coarse 

 garnets, lay on the slope, some of which were curiously marked 

 with a series of deep holes, large enough to put one's fist 

 in, and said to be the footprints of the sacred cow. They 

 appeared to me to have been caused by the roots of trees, 

 which spread over the rocks in these humid regions, and 

 wear channels in the hardest material, especially when 

 they follow the direction of its lamination or stratification. 



I encamped at a place called Buckeem (alt. 8,650 ft.), 

 in a forest of Abies Brunoniana and Webbiana, yew, 

 oak, various rhododendrons, and small bamboo. Snow 

 lay in patches at 8000 feet, and the night was cold and 

 clear. On the following morning I continued the ascent, 

 alternately up steeps and along perfectly level shelves, on 

 which were occasionally frozen pools, surrounded with dwarf 

 juniper and rhododendrons. Across one I observed the 

 track of a yak in the snow; it presented two ridges, 

 probably from the long hair of this animal, which trails 

 on the ground, sweeping the snow from the centre of its 

 path. At 11,000 feet the snow lay deep and soft in the 

 woods of silver fir, and the coolies waded through it with 

 difficulty. 



Enormous fractured boulders of gneiss were frequent 

 over the whole of Mon Lepcha, from 7000 to 11,000 feet : 

 they were of the same material as the rock in situ, and as 

 unaccountable in their origin as the loose blocks on Dor- 

 jiling and Sinchul spurs at similar elevations, often cresting 

 narrow ridges. I measured one angular detached block, 

 forty feet high, resting on a steep narrow shoulder of the 

 spur, in a position to which it was impossible it could have 

 rolled ; and it is equally difficult to suppose that glacial 

 ice deposited it 4000 feet above the bottom of the gorge, 



