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Updated: May 18, 2025
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.
The custom of driving out demons in the above manner is constantly practised by the Lamas in Tibet: MM. Huc and Gabet give a graphic account of such an operation during their stay at Kounboum. On the 29th of August I left Lachoong and proceeded up the valley.
Nor were snowy mountains visible anywhere in this direction, except far to the south-east, in Bhotan. This remarkable difference of climate is due to the southerly wind which ascends the Tibetan or Machoo valley being drained by intervening mountains before reaching this pass, whilst the Sikkim current brings abundant vapours up the Teesta and Lachoong valleys.
The Lachoong Phipun visited me on the 7tb of September: he had officiously been in Tibet to hear what the Tibetan people would say to my going to Donkia, and finding them supremely indifferent, returned to be my guide. The valley remains almost level for several miles, the road continuing along the east bank of the Lachen.
There was not now a single inhabitant between Lachoong and that dreary spot, and strongly against my wish he started, without a companion.
This girdle of mountains encloses the head waters of the Lachoong, which rises in countless streams from its perpetual snows, glaciers, and small lakes: its north drainage is to the Cholamoo lakes in Tibet; in which is the source of the Lachen, which flows round the north base of Kinchinjhow to Kongra Lama.
A tall poplar was pointed out to me as a great wonder; it had two species of Pyrus growing on its boughs, evidently from seed; one was a mountain ash, the other like Pyrus Aria. Soon after camping, the Lachoong Phipun, a very tall, intelligent, and agreeable looking man, waited on me with the usual presents, and a request that I would visit his sick father.
It commanded an incomparable view due west across the Lachoong and Lachen valleys, of the whole group of Kinchinjunga snows, from Tibet southwards, and as such was a most valuable position for geographical purposes.
Such debacles must often bury standing forests in a very favourable material, climate, and position for becoming fossilized. On the 30th of August I arrived at Yeumtong, a small summer cattle-station, on a flat by the Lachoong, 11,920 feet above the sea; the general features of which closely resemble those of the narrow Swiss valleys.
On the 15th of August, having received supplies from Dorjiling, I started up the north bank of the Lachoong, following the Singtam Soubah, who accompanied me officially, and with a very bad grace; poor fellow, he expected me to have returned with him to Singtam, and thence gone back to Dorjiling, and many a sore struggle we had on this point.
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