i6 
REPORT ON A BOTAWCAL TOUR IN SIKKIM, iSgS. 
SO peculiarly disagreeable that I could not persuade myself to eat 
more than one mouthful. 
Yeumtong is a large cattle grazing station and dep6t for Tibetan 
exports and imports. Communication thus far from the lower 
valleys is kept open by the people of Lachung who carry loads of 
planks, bamboo, rice, dye-stuffs, such as the leaves of Symplccos 
and the roots of Rubia cordifolia^ which are transported by yaks to 
Tibet, In exchange the Tibetans bring down loads of salt, barley, 
blankets and other commodities for the inhabitants of Lower Sikkim. 
I could not ascertain how many yak loads of merchandise are carried 
annually over the Donkia Pass, but every day during my stay in 
this part I saw herds of at least io or 12 yaks, and often many 
more either going or returning. Looking northwards from Yeumtong, 
the slope of the valley to an elevation of 13,000 feet is easy and is 
black with pine forests. Above, the land is red and sterile. On 
the west a tributary stream flows fiom behind Changokhang along 
the base of a long declivity of sand. The view higher up is cut off 
by jutting spurs below Momay Samdong. 
The following morning we marched to Momay Samdong, eleva- 
tion 15,300 feet. The first and the last two miles of the path are 
easy, but the intervening portion is steep. A forest of Silver Fir, 
Maple, Birch, Pyrus, Rhododendron and other trees extends to 13,000 
feet; for a few hundred feet further some scattered black Juniper 
trees occur; an equal distance is occupied by Rhododendrons and 
Willow's, and passing the spurs which terminated the view' from 
Yeumtong, the valley is broad with enormous rocks on its .^^urface, 
and the surrounding hills are rocky. I have nothing to add to the 
excellent description of this spot by Sir J. D. Hooker, but a place with 
more inhospitable surroundings can scarcely be imagined. A few 
yaks were grazing, the sole survivors of large herds almost 
annihilated by an epidemic of rinderpest, which raged duri: g the 
previous year. 
This great calamity had impoverished the inhabitants of the val 
ley, as for the greater part of the year they depend for sustenance on 
the curds and cheese made from the milk yielded oy their flocks. 
As the morning of the loth August w'as bright and sunny, holding 
out hopes of a fine day, a promise unfortunately not fulfilled, I set 
out for the Donkia Pass, seven miles from Momay, and the most 
northerly point I could reach in Sikkim. The tracks lead through a 
waste of stupendous rocks, and the stream becomes divided into 
many channels. The hills rising around it are masses of rock and 
rubble, forming a most forbidding landscape in the aggregate. The 
shallow waters support an abundance of reddish Sedum and Rheum 
