1853.] Notes upon a Tour in ike Sikkim Himalayali Mountains. 621 



a butter-cup-like plant, the conical rhubarb, two andromeda, one 

 with a pretty white bell the very image of a true heath — and juni- 

 per, a few sticks of which latter tree were brought up from a distance 

 by the Lepchas, and with them water was boiled with some diffi- 

 culty at 189° 50, or 14,229 feet. 



A pheasant got up from amongst the rocks, which I fired at and 

 bagged ; the concussion of the air was so intolerable and stunning, 

 and so painful, that I was obliged to lie down for some hours before 

 I got over it. 



The fog clearing away we were enabled to see that we were in the 

 midst of a scene of desolation and chaos, ragged rocks, black slate, 

 moraines, land slips and steep cliffs were all that met our view near 

 us, but to the south the plains and the intermediate ranges of 

 mountains were all spread out before us. To the east of our encamp- 

 ment about one mile distant, we gradually saw the rounded moun- 

 tain Ghibroo, 15,000 feet, emerge from the clouds. To the north we 

 could see nothing, as we were at some distance from the crest of a 

 high ridge, that leaves the foot of Grubroo and sweeping round to the 

 west, joins the high black mountains on which " Lake Campbell " is 

 situated. 



Somewhat to our astonishment we found our tent was only a few 

 feet removed from a precipice 300 feet deep, had one of the furious 

 blasts of wind that are common at this elevation descended from the 

 snows, our tent would have been hurled over the precipice and 

 received at the bottom in a deep pool of water a few hundred feet 

 across. Thirty feet from the shore and at the depth of twenty feet 

 I could see rocks around, whilst the water from its great depth was 

 quite black. — A bright sun was shining overhead which would have 

 enabled me to see the bottom perhaps at fifty feet, had the pool 

 been so shallow. These pools during the winter are entirely frozen 

 and covered with snow, one hundred feet deep or more, which is 

 drifted from the heights above — when this large body of snow begins 

 to melt in the spring and summer, the rocks lying under it are 

 pushed along with the descending mass and are heaped and piled 

 up as we saw them. These pools form the sources of the Eungbi 

 river which, after a course of thirty-five miles through deep valleys, 

 falls into the great Rungeet under Einchinpoong. 



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