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Tassiding, view of and from Funereal cypress Camp at Sunnook Hot vapours Lama's house Temples, decorations, altars, idols, general effect Chaits Date of erection Plundered by Ghorkas Cross Ratong Ascend to Pemiongchi Relation of river-beds to strike of rocks Slopes of ravines Pemiongchi, view of Vegetation Elevation Temple, decorations, etc.
The village and ruined convents of Yoksun lay near the route, and the temples of Doobdi, Catsuperri and Molli, on the Ratong river. On the way I passed groves of the paper-yielding Edgeworthia Gardneri: it bears round heads of fragrant, beautiful, yellow flowers, and would be a valuable acquisition to an English conservatory.
The morning of the new year was bright and beautiful, though much snow had fallen on the mountains; and we left Sunnook for Pemiongchi, situated on the summit of a lofty spur on the opposite side of the Ratong. The rocks were micaceous, dipping west and north-west 45 degrees, and striking north and north-east, which direction prevailed for 1000 feet or so up the opposite spur.
At the foot of these precipices was a very conspicuous series of lofty moraines, round whose bases the Ratong wound; these appeared of much the same height, rising several hundred feet above the valley: they were comparatively level-topped, and had steep shelving rounded sides.
After a steep descent of 1800 feet, we reached the Ratong, where its bed is only 3,790 feet above the sea; it is here a turbulent stream, twelve yards across, with the usual features of gravel terraces, huge boulders of gneiss and some of the same rock in situ, striking north-east.
I halted at the Ratong river, at the foot of Mon Lepcha, where I found its elevation to be 7,150 feet; its edges were frozen, and the temperature of the water 36 degrees; it is here a furious torrent flowing between gneiss rocks which dip south-south-east, and is flanked by flat-topped beds of boulders, gravel and sand, twelve to fourteen feet thick.
On the following day, I proceeded north-west up the Ratong river, here a furious torrent; which we crossed, and then ascended a very steep mountain called "Mon Lepcha." Immense detached masses of gneiss, full of coarse garnets, lay on the slope, some of which were curiously marked with a series of deep holes, large enough to put one's fist in, and said to be the footprints of the sacred cow.
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