1853.] Notes upon a Tour in the SikJcim Himalayah Mountains. 619 



descends in an easterly direction from the pass, crosses the Rungbi 

 to Yangpoong, to scramble in a northerly direction over naked rocks 

 under the eastern crest of Singaleelah ; these rocks have been hurled 

 from the castellated crest by the severe frosts of winter; the stra- 

 tification of the gneiss being perfectly horizontal, and the individual 

 strat exceeding minute ; the Lepchas named the blocks " Lama's 

 books" which indeed they resemble — one of these blocks fifteen feet 

 in height and thirty in length, was traversed by a band of white quartz 

 a foot thick, and being of a less perishable nature than the gneiss, 

 it stood out in bold relief at each end of the block. A thousand 

 feet below us, we saw some pools of water standing in the midst of 

 fine grass pasture land, the property of the Sikkim Rajah, and where 

 his herds of yaks graze in the month of September ; several stone 

 huts were scattered about the pasture, where the yak herds shelter 

 themselves during the night. At the present the yaks were five 

 miles to the north at Jongri, immediately under the snow, or three 

 days' journey from this. One mile of this rough and slippery scram- 

 bling brought us again to the crest of Singaleelah, where, to my 

 amazement I discovered that the Singaleelah range breaks off sud- 

 denly, and that I stood upon the edge of a steep descent several 

 thousand feet deep. Singaleelah at this spot sweeps round to the 

 east by a great bend of one mile, and terminates in a spur that 

 points to the south, separating the two main sources of the Eungbi 

 river. Prom nearly the centre of the great curve, a narrow wall- 

 like ledge much below the crest of Singaleelah runs to the north, 

 and forms the only apparent connection of Singaleelah with the 

 snows. Looking down into the deep valleys to the right and to the 

 left, whose waters are separated by the narrow ledge above-mentioned, 

 the eye rests upon a curious scene ; the valleys, destitute of any 

 vegetation and filled with pools of water, have been scoured from 

 end to end by the action of either heavy masses of moving snow or 

 by glaciers, the loose rocks are piled up in confusion, in some places, 

 to the height of several hundred feet. The whole scene is one of 

 ruin and desolation — not a shrub or a plant is seen, nothing but a 

 region of loosely piled up gneiss rocks. Prom this spot looking to 

 the north-west or across the deep valley at our feet, a fine lake 

 about a mile in length is seen perched up in a strange position upon 



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