276 TO DAEJILIKG : FIRST HIMALAYAN JOURNEY 
for in the higher valleys the snow began to fall in October, 
and by the beginning of December, when Hooker approached 
the Wallanchoon pass, the snow lay deep on the last four miles 
of the track above the 15,000 foot level. Nevertheless he 
succeeded in reaching the divide, and from the col, more than 
1000 feet higher than Mont Blanc, looked down into the for- 
bidden land of Tibet. The still loftier sister pass of Kang- 
lachem to the east, however, was more heavily snowed up, and 
there the party did not ascend beyond 16,000 feet. 
The next part of his plan was to return almost to the 
fork of the Tambur, and strike east, stili through Nepal, towards 
the Kinchin group and eventually Sikkim. This involved 
crossing the huge ridges and profound valleys that successively 
stretch south-west and south from the Himalayan crest. But 
the pass over the third of these ridges, the Kanglanamo, was 
closed, and the inhabitants of the village at its foot had with- 
drawn lower down the valley. Thus he had to turn south 
forty or fifty miles till the alpine regions were left, and a snow- 
less pass eastward into Sikkim presented itself, whence he 
could turn north again to the extreme flank of Kinchinjunga. 
At this middle point of the journey, before turning north 
again, his solitude was most agreeably interrupted. Dr. 
Campbell, putting the final touch to his long-drawn diplomatic 
negotiations, was on his way to a personal interview with the 
Sikkim Rajah. After the complicated falsehoods that had 
been concocted to impede Dr. Campbell's progress, the friends 
were greatly tickled by the droll conduct of the Rajah and 
his court, who had found themselves compelled, after all, 
to go forth to meet him on the river, as the sole means of 
preventing his iinally reaching the capital of Sikkim. On 
December 23 Hooker joined him at Bhomsong, on the banks 
of the Teesta, and shared in the formal interviews both with 
the crafty Dewan and finally, despite the Dewan's many sub- 
terfuges to delay or prevent this, with the Rajah himself, a 
faineant devotee, half oblivious of mundane matters. Arrange- 
ments were made for Hooker's trip through Sikkim the following 
summer. The Dewan, indeed, as will appear later, organised 
secret obstruction to this ; but the chief immediate result of 
