SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
With regard to the geological features of the journey, as far as the Yuto-la the strata were all quartzites, but after that mica-schist was met with in small quantities.
It was a dreadfully hot camp, but my baggage had not come up, so I was obliged to halt. I started my vaccinator at work early, and before evening he had vaccinated over two hundred people, who all seemed very pleased, and flocked in for the operation. I had sent the Tongsa a consignment of lymph from Gangtak, as he wished to introduce vaccination throughout Bhutan, and his operator met us here to be instructed what to do.
From Tashigong a road runs to the small Tibetan State of Tawang, first crossing the river Gamdi-chhu, then passing over a very steep spur, and thence to the Tawang-chhu. The Tawang-Bhutan boundary is three days’ march up the stream, at a place called Dong Shima, situated a little below the bridge by which the road crosses the river. The greater part of the trade from Tawang, which is, comparatively speaking, large, already comes by this route to the plains, and as soon as the Tongsa, as he hopes to do, makes a really good mule-track it will all follow this route to Dewangiri, and as the valleys are well populated and cultivated it is likely to increase rapidly.
There is a great deal of stick lac grown in the valley of Tashigong, but the Bhutanese do not carry on its cultivation in any systematic manner, which seems a pity, as if placed under proper supervision the industry might have a great future before it. Its culture is unusual, quite an interesting process, and only occasionally to be met with. Lac is an insect growth, and is cultivated on two distinct plants. Small pieces of lac containing colonies of the insect are placed on the stem of a shrub called Gyatso-bukshing in the autumn, and this plant is regularly cultivated and planted in rows in fields on the hillsides. In the spring these growths, which have meanwhile spread a few inches over the stem of the plant, are cut off and placed on the branches of a tree called Gyatso-shing. On these trees during the
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