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A yak-track led across the Kinchinjhow glacier, along the bank of the lake, and thence westward up a very steep spur, on which was much glacial ice and snow, but few plants above 16,000 feet.
The mountain of Choongtam is about 10,000 feet high; it divides the Lachen from the Lachoong river, and terminates a lofty range that runs for twenty-two miles south from the lofty mountain of Kinchinjhow. Its south exposed face is bare of trees, except clumps of pines towards the top, and is very steep, grassy, and rocky, without water.
Momay Samdong is situated in a broad part of the Lachoong valley, where three streams meet; it is on the west of Chango Khang, and is six miles south-east of Kinchinjhow, and seven south-west of Donkia: it is in the same latitude as Palung, but scarcely so lofty.
We arrived at Tungu at 9 p.m., my pony not having stumbled once, though the path was rugged, and crossed by many rapid streams. On the 26th of July the Phipun, who waited on me every morning with milk and butter, and whose civility and attentions were now unremitting, proposed that I should accompany him to an encampment of Tibetans, at the foot of Kinchinjhow.
I again visited the Kinchinjhow glacier and hot springs; the water had exactly the same temperature as in the previous month, though the mean temperature of the air was 8 degrees or 9 degrees lower. The minimum thermometer fell to 22 degrees, being 10 degrees lower than it ever fell in September.
Having quite expected this, I always checked the observations of the attached thermometer by another, but how, it is not easy to say the broken one invariably gave a correct temperature. The Kinchinjhow spurs are not accessible to so great an elevation as those of Donkia, but they afford finer views over Tibet, across the ridge connecting Kinchinjow with Donkia.
Kinchinjhow on the contrary was of gneiss, with granite veins: the strike of both was north-west, and the dip north-east 20 degrees to 30 degrees.
The moist vapours had by this time so accumulated, as to be condensed in rain on the cliffs of Chomiomo and Kinchinjhow; which, being loosened, precipitated avalanches of rocks and snow. We proceeded amidst dense fog, soon followed by hard rain; the roar of falling rocks on either hand increasing as these invisible giants spoke to one another in voices of thunder through the clouds.
Donkia rises to the eastward of the pass, but its top is not visible. To the west, the beetling east summit of Kinchinjhow rises at two miles distance, 3000 to 4000 feet above the pass. A little south of it, and north of Chango Khang, the view extends through a gap in the Sebolah range, across the valley of the Lachen, to Kinchinjunga, distant forty-two miles.
A few days afterwards, I again visited Palung, with the view of ascertaining the height of perpetual snow on the south face of Kinchinjhow; unfortunately, bad weather came on before I reached the Tibetans, from whom I obtained a guide in consequence.
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