Although the elevation is so low, snow falls abundantly
at Doobdi in winter; I was assured that it has been
known of the depth of five feet, a statement I consider
doubtful; the quantity is, however, certainly greater
than at equal heights about Dorjiling, no doubt owing
to its proximity to Kinchinjunga.
I was amused here by watching a child playing with
a popgun, made of bamboo, similar to that of quill,
with which most English children are familiar, which
propels pellets by means of a spring-trigger made
of the upper part of the quill. It is easy to
conclude such resemblances between the familiar toys
of different countries to be accidental, but I question
their being really so. On the plains of India,
men may often be seen for hours together, flying what
with us are children’s kites; and I procured
a jews’-harp from Tibet. These are not
the toys of savages, but the amusements of people more
than half-civilised, and with whom we have had indirect
communication from the earliest ages. The Lepchas
play at quoits, using slate for the purpose, and at
the Highland games of “putting the stone”
and “drawing the stone.” Chess, dice,
draughts, Punch, hockey, and battledore and shuttlecock,
are all Indo-Chinese or Tartarian; and no one familiar
with the wonderful instances of similarity between
the monasteries, ritual, ceremonies, attributes, vestments,
and other paraphernalia of the eastern and western
churches, can fail to acknowledge the importance of
recording even the most trifling analogies or similarities
between the manners and customs of the young as well
as of the old.
CHAPTER XV
Leave Yoksun for Kinchinjunga — Ascend Ratong valley —
Salt-smuggling over Ratong — Landslips — Plants — Buckeem —
Blocks of gneiss — Mon Lepcha — View — Weather — View from Gubroo
— Kinchinjunga, tops of — Pundim cliff — Nursing — Vegetation of
Himalaya — Coup d’oeil of Jongri — Route to Yalloong — Arduous
route of salt-traders from Tibet — Kinchin, ascent of — Lichens —
Surfaces sculptured by snow and ice — Weather at Jongri — Snow —
Shades for eyes.
I left Yoksun on an expedition to Kinchinjunga on
the 7th of January. It was evident that at this
season I could not attain any height; but I was most
anxious to reach the lower limit of that mass of perpetual
snow which descends in one continuous sweep from 28,000
to 15,000 feet, and radiates from the summit of Kinchin,
along every spur and shoulder for ten to fifteen miles,
towards each point of the compass.
The route lay for the first mile over the Yoksun flat,
and then wound along the almost precipitous east flank
of the Ratong, 1000 feet above its bed, leading through
thick forest. It was often difficult, crossing
torrents by calms of bamboo, and leading up precipices
by notched poles and roots of trees. I wondered
what could have induced the frequenting of such a
route to Nepal, when there were so many better ones
