Spreading our rugs in the long grass near the cow-shed, we tried to rest for a while; but what with the unevenness of the ground, insects creeping over me, the prickly points of brambles and weeds penetrating the thin rug on which I lay, and a shower of rain which wetted us through, we could get no sleep, so we started again at four in the morning. The path, hardly a foot broad, was choked with weeds and long grass. Lighting my lantern, I followed Phurchung, my shot-gun tied across the top of the load he carried, and with many a slip and tumble we reached the valley of the Rummam at daybreak.
November 8.—The Rummam, one of the principal feeders of the Great Rungit, rises in the Singli mountains, and forms the boundary between British territory and independent Sikkim on the north-west, all the country to the right (south) of it belonging to the former Government. We found it a raging torrent, and only spanned by a light footbridge of bamboo poles resting on a huge boulder in the middle of the stream, and held down by rocks. The Lepchas and Limbus catch fish, sometimes of considerable size, in the cold season in the pools in the river-bed, which the former sell in the Darjiling bazar. Sal trees were abundant, and on the hill-slopes we saw cardamom and cotton now ready to be picked. On the larger patches of cultivation, guards were stationed in bamboo watch-houses to scare away the monkeys and bears with bamboo clappers. I was told that a large species of monkeys, besides the small variety of which we saw a few, are found in this valley, and that they are a terror to the peasants and to solitary female travellers.[1] To kill these the Lepchas use dogbane and other poisonous roots, which they mix with cooked edible roots or rice.
On nearing the bridge, we fell in with some twenty men carrying oranges to Darjiling, but I was fortunately able to pass by unnoticed. After a short rest, during which I had some breakfast, and changed my Indian dress for a Tibetan one, we resumed our journey uphill, leaving the Mitogang road on our right. Antelope and wild goat abound hereabout, but the villagers shoot but little: they are so poor
- ↑ Hooker, op.cit., ii. 37, mentions seeing a troop of large monkeys in the Lamteng valley (alt. 9000 feet) in Sikkim. Ibid., p. 108, he says that in the most snowy part of Sikkim (near the Tunkra la) "large monkeys are also found on the skirts of the pine forests, and a curious long-tailed animal, Ailurus ochraceus, peculiar to the Himalaya, something between a diminutive bear and a squirrel." Large monkeys are also found in Eastern Tibet at about 9000 feet alt.—(W. R.)
