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Enormous blocks of white and red stratified quartz, and slate, some 20 and even 40 yards long, rest on the narrow ridge at 7000 feet elevation. I hung the barometers near one of the many chaits on the summit, where there is also a rude temple, in which worship is performed once a year.
At about 4000 feet above the sea, the spur became more open and flat, like those of the Kulhait valley, with alternate slopes and comparative flats: from this elevation the view north, south, and west, was very fine; below us flowed the river, and a few miles up it was the conical wooded hill of Tassiding, rising abruptly from a fork of the deep river gorge, crowned with its curious temples and mendongs, and bristling with chaits: on it is the oldest monastery in Sikkim, occupying a singularly picturesque and prominent position.
After some difficulty I found the remains of a broad path that divided into two; one of them led to a second ruined temple, fully a mile off, and the other I followed to a grove, in which was a gigantic chait; it was a beautiful lane throughout, bordered with bamboo, brambles, gay-flowered Melastomaceae like hedge-roses, and scarlet Erythrina: there were many old mendongs and chaits on the way, which I was always careful to leave on the right hand in passing, such being the rule among Boodhists, the same which ordains that the praying-cylinder or "Mani" be made to revolve in a direction against the sun's motion.
It was surrounded by chaits, mendongs, poles with banners, and other religious erections; and though beautifully situated on a flat terrace overlooking the valley, we were much disappointed with its size and appearance.
The latter range dips suddenly to the Great Rungeet, where Tassiding, with its chaits and cypresses, closed the view. The day was half cloud, half sunshine; and the various effects of light and shade, now bringing out one or other of the villages and temples, now casting the deep valleys into darker gloom, was wonderfully fine.
Nor are there any signs of Lepcha interment throughout Sikkim; though chaits are erected to the memory of the departed, they have no necessary connection with the remains, and generally none at all. Corpses in Sikkim are never cut to pieces and thrown into lakes, or exposed on hills for the kites and crows to devour, as is the case in Tibet.
The name "Teesta" signifies "quiet," this river being so in comparison with other Himalayan torrents further west, the Cosi, Konki, etc., which are devastators of all that bounds their course. We passed but two crossing-places: at one the river is divided by an island, covered with the rude chaits and flags of the Boodhists.
Mendongs and chaits are very numerous, some of great size; and there are also the ruins of two very large temples, near which are some magnificent weeping cypresses, eighty feet high.
I found my friend in good health and spirits, strictly guarded in a small thatched hut, of bamboo wattle and clay: the situation was pretty, and commanded a view of the Ryott valley and the snowy mountains; there were some picturesque chaits hard by, and a blacksmith's forge. Our walks were confined to a few steps in front of the hut, and included a puddle and a spring of water.
Changachelling temples and chaits crown a beautiful rocky eminence on the ridge, their roofs, cones and spires peeping through groves of bamboo, rhododendrons, and arbutus; the ascent is by broad flights of steps cut in the mica-slate rocks, up which shaven and girdled monks, with rosaries and long red gowns, were dragging loads of bamboo stems, that produced a curious rattling noise.
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