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We accordingly started again the following morning, and still keeping in a western direction, crossed the posts in the forest dividing Sikkim from Nepal, and descended into the Myong valley of the latter country, through which flows the river of that name, a tributary of the Tambur.
My object being to reach the Tambur, north of the great east and west mountain ridge of Sakkiazung, without crossing the innumerable feeders of the Myong and their dividing spurs, we ascended the north flank of the valley to a long spur from Tonglo, intending to follow winding ridges of that mountain to the sources of the Pemmi at the Phulloot mountains, and thence descend.
Lower down the valley, appeared a broad flat, called Jubla, a halting-place one stage below the village of Kambachen, on the road to Lelyp on the Tambur: it must be a remarkable geological as well as natural feature, fao it appeared to jut abruptly and quite horizontally from the black cliffs of the valley.
A little further on we crossed the main ridge of Sakkiazung, a long flexuous chain stretching for miles to the westward from Phulloot on Singalelah, and forming the most elevated and conspicuous transverse range in this part of Nepal: its streams flow south to the Myong, and north to feeders of the Tambur. There were, however, a few yews, exactly like the English.
I had hired some Ghorka coolies to assist and eventually to replace them, and had made up my mind to send back the worst from the more populous banks of the Tambur, when I was relieved by their making off of their own accord. The dilemma was however awkward, as it was impossible to procure men on the top of a mountain 10,000 feet high, or to proceed towards Phulloot.
The river-terrace is in all respects similar to that at the junction of the Tambur and Khawa, but very extensive: the stones it contained were of all sizes, from a nut to huge boulders upwards of fifteen feet long, of which many strewed the surface, while others were in the bed of the river: all were of gneiss, quartz, and granite, and had doubtless been transported from great elevations, as the rocks in situ both here and for several thousand feet higher up the river were micaceous schists, dipping in various directions, and at all angles, with, however, a general strike to the north-west.
The thermometer fell to 28 degrees during the night, and in the morning the ground was thickly covered with hoar-frost. December 7. We ascended the Yalloong ridge to a saddle 11,000 feet elevation, whence the road dips south to the gloomy gorges of the eastern feeders of the Tambur.
Again, the natives use these names very vaguely, and as that of Kinchinjunga is often applied equally to all or any part of the group of snows between the Lachen and Tambur rivers, so may the term Chumulari have been used vaguely to Captain Turner or to me.
At the bottom three furious torrents met: we descended the course of one of them, over slanting precipices, or trees lashed to the rocks, and after a most winding course our path conducted us to the village of Tarbu, high above a feeder of the Khabili river, which flows west, joining the Tambur three days' march lower down.
Their language, though radically identical with Tibetan, differs from it in many important particulars. They, or at least some of their tribes, call themselves Rong, and Arratt, and their country Dijong: they once possessed a great part of East Nepal, as far west as the Tambur river, and at a still earlier period they penetrated as far west as the Arun river.
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