368 SIKKIM HIMALAYA. Chap. XVI. 



Like all the natives of Tibet and Sikkim, the priests are 

 intolerably filthy; in some cases so far carrying out their doc- 

 trines as not even to kill the vermin with which they swarm. 

 All are nominally bound to chastity, but exemptions in favour 

 of Lamas of wealth, rank, or power, are granted by the 

 supreme pontiffs, both in Tibet and Sikkim. I constantly 

 found swarms of children about the Lamaseries, who were 

 invariably called nephews and nieces. 



Descending from the Catsuperri temples, I encamped at 

 the village of Tengling (elevation 5,257 feet), where I was 

 waited upon by a bevy of forty women, Lepchas and 

 Sikkim Bhoteeas, accompanied by their children, and 

 bringing presents of fowls, rice and vegetables, and apolo- 

 gising for the absence of their male relatives, who were 

 gone to carry tribute to the Rajah. Thence I marched to 

 Changachelling, first descending to the Tengling river, 

 which divides the Catsuperri from the Molli ridge, and 

 which I crossed. 



Tree-ferns here advance further north than in any other 

 part of Sikkim. I did not visit the Molli temples, but 

 crossed the spur of that name, to the Rungbee river, whose 

 bed is 3,300 feet above the sea; thence I ascended upwards 

 of 3,500 feet to the Changachelling temples, passing Tchong- 

 pong village. The ridge on which both Pemiongchi and 

 Changachelling are built, is excessively narrow at top ; it is 

 traversed by a "via sacra," connecting these two establish- 

 ments; this is a pretty wooded walk, passing mendongsand 

 chaits hoary with lichens and mosses ; to the north the 

 snows of Kinchinjunga are seen glimmering between the 

 trunks of oaks, laurels, and rhododendrons, while to the 

 south the Sinchul and Dorjiling spurs shut out the view of 

 the plains of India. 



Changachelling temples and chaits crown a beautiful 



