MAP OF SIKKIM 275 
In fact, until the positions of the chief places and heights 
were worked out so as to construct a map, he had but an 
imperfect idea of where he had been. 
During the greater part of my journey [he tells his father] 
I saw not a single known object, and had to observe with 
the sextant. No map contains the name of a single place 
which I have visited ! That I was poking in and out over 
the western base of Kinchin is all I can affirm. 
The line of route for ninety days linally showed the average 
daily distance covered to be eight miles — one mile per hour ! 
Yet they w^alked full three miles every hour, so that two- 
thirds was wasted in the ups and downs and bends. 
This and the similar chart made in eastern Sikkim, whence 
the passes led to Phari in Tibet, formed the basis of the care- 
fully drawn map a copy of which appears in the ' Journals ' : 
a unique map of such value to the British officers of the 
Sikkim-Tibet Boundary Commission of 1903 that they tele- 
graphed their congratulations from the front to the maker 
of it, who at the age of eighty-six was touched to receive this 
tribute to the work he had accomplished over half a century 
before.^ 
The first part of the journey was to follow the Tambur 
river northwards and proceed in turn up its west and east 
forks to the passes at the head of either valley, one thirty 
the other twenty miles to the west of Kinchinjunga. This 
great mountain, rising to 28,000 feet and continued in sub- 
sidiary crests all over 20,000, presented an impassable barrier 
of snowy peaks about sixty-four miles long, stretching between 
the western passes at the head of the Tambur, and the eastern 
passes at the head of the Lachen (Teesta), explored by Hooker 
in his second expedition. It was already late in the season, 
^ Khambajong, Thibet : ' Major Prain, Colonel Younghusband and officers 
Thibet IVIission desire to send you their felicitations by telegraph from Kham- 
bajong and express their high admiration of that zeal displayed by you fifty- 
five years ago, which has enabled them to follow in your steps and has inspired 
them to emulate your devotion to science and to your country.' (See ii. 457.) 
Major (afterwards Sir David) Prain, C.M.G., CLE., of the Indian Medical 
Service, was then Director of the Calcutta Gardens, and in 1905 succeeded 
Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer as Director of Kew, 
