386*2.] 
Journal of a trip in the Sikkim Himalaya. 
471 
the water’s edge, was seen the noisy, foaming Ratong. On our left a 
dark range of bare, bold and craggy mountains 16,000 or 17,000 feet 
high, capped with snow, having the appearance of basaltic formation, 
but formed of gneiss mixed with hornblende and syenite, rose abrupt¬ 
ly. We were the first European travellers to gaze upon this truly 
grand scene. Any one desirous of witnessing grandeur of scenery 
should visit Alutong. However toilsome and comparatively uninter¬ 
esting he may find the intermediate travelling as far as Jongli, he 
will be well repaid by the wild scenery of this locality. 
Another cold night, and clear, crisp morning; thermometer at 
sunrise 5|° ; and at sunset, the valley having been in the shade since 
4 p. M., it stood at 21° . At 10 o’clock we all started to explore the 
morains. We proceeded at times along the bed and banks of the 
river, at others over rough, stony ground, deeply intersected by small 
running streams coming from the snow. The main stream flows gent¬ 
ly over a gravel bed of moderate incline. The valley is nearly a mile 
broad, and covered with dwarf rhododendron and grass wherever soil 
occurs. 
A little before reaching the morain we passed a series of Mendongs, 
having numerous slabs of well carved prayers and images of the 
gods in the side walls, extending the entire length. These slabs of 
chlorite slate are carved by Llamas from the Sikkim monasteries 
who periodically visit this place on pilgrimage during the rains. 
Having ascended the immense mass of debris forming the morain, 
probably to an elevation of 35,000 feet, we found ourselves, to our 
great surprise, standing on the top of a stupendous glacier. This huge 
mass of ice and debris descending from the Pundeem mountain ex¬ 
tends nearly across the valley, where it is met by, and abuts upon 
another glacier, equally vast in its dimensions, and formed at the 
base of the snow-clad mountains on the other, or western side of the 
valley, the two together forming a complete barrier across the valley 
and choking it up to the height of a thousand feet or more. The 
morain forms the retaining wall to this mass of moving ice and 
debris, and is composed of rounded and angular blocks of highly con¬ 
torted gneiss , intermixed with pieces of syenite, micaceous schist, 
coarse granite, quartz with tourmaline crystals, white and pink 
quartz, often containing veins of crystalized felspar and coarse 
gravel and debris. Towards the summit the fragments were all 
