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The Lamas of Pemiongchi, Changachelling, Tassiding, etc., and the Dewan's enemies, and Tchebu Lama's friends, began to flock from all quarters to Tumloong, demanding audience of the Rajah, and our instant liberation. The Dewan's game was evidently up; but the timidity of his opponents, his own craft, and the habitual dilatoriness of all, contributed to cause endless delays.
The Pemiongchi and Changachelling convents and temples stand a few miles apart, on the ridge forming the north flank of the Kulhait valley; and as they will be described hereafter, I now only allude to the village, which is fully 1000 feet below the convent, and large and populous.
Owing to this duty, and the remoteness of the eastern passes, the people on the west side of the Great Rungeet were compelled to pay an enormous sum for salt; and the Lamas of Changachelling and Pemiongchi petitioned Dr.
He spoke no Hindoostanee, but was very communicative through my interpreters. Leaving the Lingcham spur, we passed steep cliffs of mica and schist, covered with brushwood and long grass, about 1000 feet above which the Changachelling convent is perched.
Crossing a torrent, we came to the next village, on the spur of Kurziuk, where I was met by a deputation of women, sent by the Lamas of Changachelling, bearing enormous loads of oranges, rice, milk, butter, ghee, and the everflowing Murwa beer.
This argument, I said, had been disposed of the previous year, and I was fortunate in recognising one of my Changachelling friends, who set forth my kindly offices to the Lamas of that convent, and the friendship borne me by its monks, and by those of Pemiongchi. Many other modes of dissuading me were attempted, but with Meepo's assistance I succeeded in gaining my point.
We were told that the monks of Changachelling and those of this establishmont had copied what remained, and were busy compiling from oral information, etc.: whatever value the original may have possessed, however, is irretrievably lost. A magnificent copy of the Boodhist Scriptures was destroyed at the same time; it consisted of 400 volumes, each containing several hundred sheets of Daphne paper.
During the Nepal war, the Rajah was driven west across the Teesta, whilst the Ghorkas plundered Tassiding, Pemiongchi, Changachelling, and all the temples and convents to the east of that river. Campbell and myself were each presented.
I constantly found swarms of children about the Lamaseries, who were invariably called nephews and nieces. Thence I marched to Changachelling, first descending to the Tengling river, which divides the Catsuperri from the Molli ridge, and which I crossed. Tree-ferns here advance further north than in any other part of Sikkim.
Looking west from the summit, no fewer than ten monastic establishments with their temples, villages and cultivation, were at once visible, in the valley of the Great Rungeet, and in those of its tributaries; namely, Changachelling, Raklang, Dholi, Molli, Catsuperri, Dhoobdi, Sunnook, Powhungri, Pemiongchi and Tassiding, all of considerable size, and more or less remarkable in their sites, being perched on spurs or peaks at elevations varying from 3000 to 7000 feet, and commanding splendid prospects.
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