416 A Journey through Sikim. [No. 5. 



3rd. From Neh to Goreh is under the Goreh Soobah, who resides 

 at Goreh. 



4th. From Goreh to Choongtam, the country is under the Singtam 

 Soobah, who resides at Singtam. 



The Choongtam Lama, and the Phipuns of the Lachen and Lachoong 

 vallies, have respectively the local charge of their districts under the 

 Singtam Soobah's surveillance, but the peculiar position of the two 

 latter officers, the Phipuns, serving as they do the authorities of 

 adjacent Thibet, as well as the Sikim Raja, will be better explained 

 afterwards. 



The Lachen man manages the country extending from Choongtam 

 up to Kongra Lama ; the Lachoong one, from the same point up to 

 the Doukia Pass. Choongtam is at the junction of the Lachen and 

 Lachoong rivers. Their united streams form the Teesta. 



The Gereh district is at present assigned to the heir-apparent of 

 the Raja, the Singtam one to the Moha* Rani. 



We met many men to-day, travelling to the South ; they had been 

 10 days on the road from Choombi. They were laden with salt. We 

 passed others with loads of chopped Munjeet, going all the way to 

 Phari.* How pitiful to see the trade of a people, in such bulky 

 articles, carried on in this way, when a road for Ponies and Bullocks 

 would make it so much more easy and profitable. 



The road from Bansong to Lachen and Lachoongj* is so extremely 

 bad, that it is not used in traffic with Thibet till the one by Chola to 

 Choombi is snowed up. Lachen and Lachoong are nearer Bamsong 

 than Choombi ; and no snowy range intervenes, but there is no food to 

 be had in this direction. From Lachen and Lachoong northwards 

 the roads are good for cattle into Thibet, but a cattle road from the 

 heart of Sikim to these places is required, to establish a proper trade 

 with Thibet. The British Government could do this ; the Sikim Raja 

 never can have the means to do so. 



Talking of the wretched system of trade in this direction, and of 

 the people who dabbled in it, the Cheeboo Lama said to me the other 

 day, "The Bhotias are, however, very good Pedlars, (Biparies,) they 

 eat so much less than Lepchas." " How do you mean," I asked. 



* A frontier mart of Thibet. 



f The principal places in the vallies of these names. 



