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Updated: June 18, 2025
We were bitterly cold; as the previous rain had wetted us through, and a keen wind was blowing up the valley. The continued mist and fog intercepted all view, except of the flanks of the great mountains on either hand, of the rugged snowy ones to the south, and of those bounding the Lachen to the north.
Of these, the source of the Lachen is in the Cholamoo lakes in Tibet; while the Lachoong rises on the south flank of Donkia mountain, both many marches north of my present position.
We descended in the afternoon, and on our way up the Lachen valley examined a narrow gulley in a lofty red spur from Kinchinjhow, where black shales were in situ, striking north-east, and dipping north-west 45 degrees.
Meanwhile, the Lachen Phipun continued to threaten us, and I had to send back some of the more timorous of my party. On the 28th of June fifty men arrived at the Thlonok, and turned my people out of the shed at the junction of the rivers, together with the plants they were preserving, my boards, papers, and utensils.
The descent of the Zenlu in one thousand feet is more precipitous than that of any other river of its size with which I am acquainted in Sikkim, yet immediately above my camp it was more tranquil than at any part of its course onwards to the plains of India, whether as the Zemu, Lachen or Teesta.
On the 11th of July five coolies arrived with rice: they had been twenty days on the road, and had been obliged to make great detours, the valley being in many places impassable. They brought me a parcel of English letters; and I started up the Lachen on the following day, with renewed spirits and high hopes.
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 conferva grew in the waters of the lake, and short, hard tufts of sedge on the banks, but no other plants were to be seen. No view was obtained to the north, owing to the height of the mountains on the north flank of the Lachen. At noon the temperature rose to 52.5 degrees, and the black-bulb to 104.5 degrees; whilst the north-west dusty wind was so dry, that the dew-point fell to 24.2 degrees.
The early mornings were bright with views northwards of blue sky and Kinchinjhow, while to the south the lofty peak of Tukcham, though much nearer, was seldom seen, and black cumuli and nimbi rolled up the steep valley of the Lachen to be dissipated in mist over Tallum.
Above this the Lachen meanders along a broad stony bed; and the path rises over a great ancient moraine, whose level top is covered with pools, but both that and its south face are bare, from exposure to the south wind, which blows with fury through this contracted part of the valley to the rarified atmosphere of the lofty, open, and dry country beyond.
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