CHAPTER XVI. 



Ratong river below Mon Lepcha — Ferns — Vegetation of Yoksun, tropical — 

 Araliacece, fodder for cattle — Rice-paper plant — Geology of Yoksun — Lake — 

 Old temples — Funereal cypresses — Gigantic chait — Altars — Songboom — 

 Weather — Catsuperri — Velocity of Ratong — Worship at Catsuperri lake — 

 Scenery — Willow — Lamas and ecclesiastical establishments of Sikkim — 

 Tengling — Changachelling temples and monks — Portrait of myself on walls 

 — Block of mica-schist — Lingcham Kajee asks for spectacles — Hee-hill — 

 Arrive at Little Rungeet — At Dorjiling — Its deserted and wintry appearance. 



On the following day we marched to Yoksun : the wea- 

 ther was fair, though it was evidently snowing on the 

 mountains above. I halted at the Ratong river, at the foot 

 of Mon Lepcha, where I found its elevation to be 7,150 feet; 

 its edges were frozen, and the temperature of the water 36°; 

 it is here a furious torrent flowing between gneiss rocks 

 which dip south-south-east, and is flanked by flat-topped 

 beds of boulders, gravel and sand, twelve to fourteen feet 

 thick. Its vegetation resembles that of Dorjiling, but is more 

 alpine, owing no doubt to the proximity of Kinchinjunga. 

 The magnificent Rhododendron argenteum was growing on its 

 banks. On the other hand, I was surprised to see a beautiful 

 fern (a Trichomanes, very like the Irish one) which is not 

 found at Dorjiling. The same day, at about the same 

 elevation, I gathered sixty species of fern, many of very 

 tropical forms.* No doubt the range of such genera is 

 extended in proportion to the extreme damp and equable 



* They consisted of the above-mentioned Trlchomanes, three ffymenophyllce, 

 Vittaria, Pleopcttis, and Mamttia, together with several Selagvnellas. 



