Photo by John Claude White 



ONE OF THE GATES TO TONGSA JONG (SEE PAGES 432 AND 433) 



"It is a delightfully easy method of praying, and some enormous wheels have been 

 erected. One at Lamteng, in the Lachen Valley in Sikkim, contains no less than four tons 

 of printed paper, and measures about 9 feet in height by 4^/2 feet in diameter" (see text, 

 pages 419-421). 



ing in the pine forest, from whence we 

 looked down on the broad vale of Bya- 

 gha, through which a river flowed tran- 

 quilly. On the right bank was a large 

 house and chapel, surrounded by trees 

 just bursting into leaf, the home of Sir 

 Ugyeirs sister, and close by the site of 

 the old house in which he was born. On 

 a bluff on the central ridge, some 500 

 feet up, was the castle, entirely rebuilt, 

 though on a smaller scale, after the total 

 destruction of the old one in 1897; while, 

 to crown all, where the ridge widened out 

 into broad glades, edged with pine for- 

 ests, was the equally new summer house 

 of our host. He had terraced and turfed 

 the slope above the castle (see page 426). 



Nothing could have been more pictur- 

 esque than our camping-ground at By- 

 agha. The view everywhere, both up and 

 down the valley, was lovely. Dr. Griffith 

 70 years previously had written : "The 

 country was very beautiful, particularly 

 in the higher elevations. And at this 

 season, to add to the beauty, primulas, in 

 flower in myriads, clothed whole glades 

 in delicate violet, while above rhododen- 

 drons flamed in gorgeous scarlet/' He 

 adds : "We saw scarcely any villages, and 

 but very little cultivation." 



In direct contradiction to this, I no- 

 ticed that whole hillsides were being cul- 

 tivated up to at least 1 1,000 feet, and I 

 was so struck by the difference that I 



423 



