. ASAM AND THE NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES. 425 



cold and heavy rain, but our people who were now suffering very severely 

 from fevers and swollen legs, were many of them not up till late. It 

 was our constant employment on halting, as soon as we could get a hut 

 built, to make a fire in front and hang up our clothes to dry ; had we 

 not luckily been provided with a piece of wax cloth, which was of 

 great assistance in keeping out the rain at night, we must also have 

 sunk under this unaccustomed exposure to severe weather. The total 

 ascent above our last halting place was two thousand four hundred and 

 nine feet — total elevation, seven thousand eight hundred and forty feet. 

 When we resumed our march at the ascent, early on the morrow, 

 we were, in the space of an hour, on a level with snow, distant two or 

 three miles, on the opposite mountains to our right and left. We could 

 plainly trace the waters from their sources, and in the melting snow, which 

 still lay in considerable quantity in the ravines. The whole scene 

 possessed, in a high degree, the features of wild and romantic grandeur. 

 We were ascending the ridge which separates the two branches of the 

 Dapha, and were fast approaching to the altitude where they have their 

 origin : we were near the end of a long but large dell or chasm of which the 

 WangUo, and the higher mountains succeeding it, form the one bank, and 

 the Beacon with its high wall, of which it forms a splendid pinnacle, the 

 other. In advance, the pass to be surmounted, formed the connecting- 

 ridge between the two sides. 



The trees were now growing in all directions, seldom perpendicularly, 

 and all covered with coarse moss, excepting the smooth barked rhodo- 

 dendron, which was then in fine flower. Lieutenant Burlton detected 

 both beech and ash in the course of the day, and at a great altitude we 

 found abundance of the plant — the yellow bitter roots of which constitute 

 so principal an article of Mishini traffic with the Lamas. On our side 

 there were no firs, though they abounded on the northern mountain, even 

 at a much lower level. Towards the summit, there were some large bare 



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