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Physicians say that the thumbs are the master fingers of the hand, and that their Latin etymology is derived from "pollere." The Greeks called them 'Avtixeip', as who should say, another hand. And it seems that the Latins also sometimes take it in this sense for the whole hand: "Sed nec vocibus excitata blandis, Molli pollici nec rogata, surgit."

In like manner, jugo, ridge, summit, is contrasted with vertice, peak, height, cf. Virg. Ecl. 9, 7: molli clivo; Ann. 17, 38: colles clementer assurgentes. The Rhaetian Alps, now the mountains of the Grisons. Alp is a Celtic word==hill. Albion has the same root==hilly country. Erumpat, al. erumpit.

There is a proverb in the patois of Vaud which says 'Kan on vau dau pesson, fo molli; and on this the Bisuntians act, standing patiently half-way up the thigh in the river, as the Swiss on the Lake of Geneva and other lakes may be seen to do.

It must have been a beautiful sight from many a near mountain height to watch the Patriarch's chimney-pot hat slowly move downwards on the zigzag path. "What's that Virgil says about ranging mountain tops?" said the Chancery Barrister: "Me Parnassi deserta per ardua dulcis Raptat amor: juvat ire jugis, qua nulla priorum Castaliam molli divertitur orbita clivo."

I did not visit the Molli temples, but crossed the spur of that name, to the Rungbee river, whose bed is 3,300 feet above the sea; thence I ascended upwards of 3,500 feet to the Changachelling temples, passing Tchongpong village.

The recent change in the character of the Mella a river anciently so remarkable for the gentleness of its current that it was specially noticed by Catullus as flowing molli flumine deserves more than a passing remark. This river rises in the mountain-chain east of Lake Iseo, and traversing the district of Brescia, empties into the Oglio after a course of about seventy miles.

But the hydrography of almost every considerable river and its tributaries will be found to embrace most special cases, most known forms of superficial fluid circulation. For rivers, in general, begin in the mountains, traverse the plains, and end in the sea; they are torrents at their sources, swelling streams in their middle course, placid currents, flowing molli flumine, at their termination.

This word has been considered by some as an adverb, and by others as a preposition. It is better however to regard it as a participle, like ortus, with which it is connected, though without a conjunction expressed. Ritter omits in. Molli et clementer edito. Of gentle slope and moderate elevation in studied antithesis to inaccesso ac praecipiti, lofty and steep.

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.