1852.] A Journey through Sikim. 491 



Kangra Lama ; our route lav all the way along the Lachen, Kunchin- 

 jhow on our right, Chomiomo on our left. The valley of the Lachen 

 opened out into flat terraces, and contracted by turns into rocky 

 gorges, until at four miles from Sitong, gradually rising on a sloping 

 plateau, you leave the Lachen to the left, turn the shoulder of Kan- 

 chanjhow on the right, and find yourself without any effort of ascent 

 on this side, or any descent on the other, on the Thibetan territory, 

 and beyond the Himalayan chain. Where this transit takes place it 

 is a grassy open down, sloping if at all to the south, and about a mile 

 broad from the Lachen on the west, to a swampy flat at the foot of 

 Kunchinjhow on the east, from which swamp a dribbling stream joins 

 the Lachen a little way below. On this flat ground the boundary 

 marks of Sikim and Thibet are conspicuous. They are small cairus 

 of stones, in one of which a written certificate is annually placed by 

 the Thibetans, that the boundary has been examined and found cor- 

 rect. This is the Kangra Lama Pass so to speak, but no Pass at all 

 in the sense taken of the term in the Himalaya generally. 



It is probably the easiest passage in the world through a mountain 

 range;* the elevation at the frontier pillars is 16,500 feet. 



A mile below the boundary two Thibetans, who had been watching 

 our progress up the valley, joined us. They were not armed, but I 

 suspected their purpose of stopping us, and had them questioned. 

 They admitted they were Thibetans : and asserted that the ground we 

 were then on was Thibetan. I told them that we were in Sikim, 

 which was the case ; and as I had found them in Sikim, and ignorant 

 of the proper boundary line, I should regard them as Sikimites for the 

 rest of the day. They walked ahead quietly until I passed the cairus ; 

 then they commenced calling out to their comrades who were encamp- 

 ed close by, and objected to our progress, but offered no actual obstruc- 

 tion to it. 



Feeling that this mode of proceeding would not answer, and at the 

 earnest desire of the Lama who was becoming alarmed at beino- 

 implicated in a trespass on Thibet, I stopped close to the cairus, and 

 asked to see the officer commanding the Thibetan guard, to whom I 

 wished to communicate my reasons for desiring a passage through 



* More correctly speaking the easiest termination to a passage, for the real 

 passage through the chain is the Lacheu which arises beyond it. 



