Item 34 - Letter from Joseph Dalton Hooker to Brian Houghton Hodgson

1 letter

Camp Samdong
July 19/49

My dear B

Your long and kind letter of the 30th June has this day arrived with the much acceptable brands of Tea. It would have been well had I given up the cutting and hewing line, as you (too late) wisely advise, but really I was at a loss what to do and did, do feel sure that to give up here, is to expose myself to a quadruple amount of annoyance elsewhere - If I give this pass up, I may as well give up Lachoong too, for to find, or cut one's way is equally impossible - Meepo knows neither way, and the Quaber I still as all along suspect - It is all and ever part of it the Rajah's doing and as I have said over and over again this 10 months, except under fear or coercion there is no place for me. After all I did get something for my cutting and tearing. The Th'londe and [Genui?] the former running W to Kinchin, and cutting off the great Mt chain from the long spurs of the Thibetan table land and the sources of the Genui, amongst the low (comparatively) hills of the latter, are points of moment and besides this I can now connect the geog, of that frontier - W to Kinchin with this (I hope) East to Powhunry true it cost a month of such a life as I hope never to spend again, but my curiosity to know the features of that quarter, (behind the visible ranges) and the course of so large a stream as the T'hlonok must ever have been an aching void - Especially when I should have found how singularly anomalous this quarter is. Again, I am in no hurry to reach Lachoong even were my prospects there better than here, for I may be weeks and never see the length of my hands so perpetual are the fogs of this region. I am clearly out for all the rains and August has no rain, September with heavier rain has clearer weather a great deal. Lastly I think I have made out a point of exceeding interest - that Kongra Lama. the frontier [by] this route is bona fide the water shed! the true frontier of bare table land, and grass and [?] low thought it be as also, that what I may see from Lachoong will be inexplicable without this bit. Look you dear B - The Singtam Soubah called on me this morning, and as usual I talked him into the most delightful humor, told him tales of my younger days, of all the Bens in Scotland and Papa's pulling me up precipices after plants and such like when he volunteered to give me a geography of N. Sikkim and Thibet, called for paper, rice and charcoal and squatting on the wet ground (which has given me a touch of lumbago) he knocked off really an excellent chart, making the Mts. of heaps of rice and drawing the routes and rivers - I send you a copy you will remark that he cannot tell N and S well amongst Mts and that I take it his Lachoong pass ridge should run [E and W?] not N and S [Kancheng jow?] Is my great Mt (alias Choyarribo) it is very holy and Poojahs offered annually to it. Cholamoo is undoubtedly a table land, declining West and North - Kongra Paber he assures me is continuous with the plateaux and the boundary of the bare mountains and grassy ones. All the Lachen waters come from South of it, - from Cholamoo to [East[ or low hills like these to the West. He forgets the name of the great Mt he places North of the Lachoong Pass - I presume it should be East and that it is Waugh's Powhunry he says it is a little higher than Kanchen jow. Immediately N of Kongra Lama is [Genoo/Geroo?] a large Thibetan village, and no doubt the reason why they visit by progress in this direction - Waters flow North from thereabouts, or rather N.W. to the Y. Tsampoo, but is tortuous amongst ranges of hills in Thibet, that it is difficult to guess their direction the [?] (of Campbell's [?]) is the largest - At the back of Kinchin the country is very mountainous and uninhabited K is visible from Dobtah, but no further the country is altogether so mountainous that neither Kanchen jow, Doubia lah or Chumulari are seen from any distance at all - Hence doubt Turner's silence about all this stupendous and superior range west of Chumulari the Soubah thinks probably the head of the Yarron! but is not sure, at any rate great water flow thence to the Yarron. From the back of Kanchenjunga and he thinks from N.E. of it even, the [Arun] waters rise. He knows of no stream from Kamchang to the Yarron. Now you see the probability even, of Kongra P alias Kongra Lama being the water shed, renders me extremely anxious to visit it. Everyone says it is a low spur, never snowed till late in the season. Not a mt. ridge at all, and as perhaps the lowerst Himal Pass I do long to see it - If you did not know how weary I am of [?] after Mt. views you would not wonder at me heart's not bounding at the prospect of the Lachoong view. I know what it will be over and over again I shall climb the Pass to see nothing I Soubahs worrying me and wearying my people - Even granting I get this length. But is all comes of Sikkim this halfway between the two great Mt groups is the most curious, and I shall leave it thus unexplained, if such is my doom with hearty sorrow. Every additional bullying and obstacle makes me more cautious and guarded and for God's sake dear B don't advise my leaving this route - If Lachoong is really to be more practicable - Amen there's lots of time for that too. I do hope C. will write to the Rajah before he gives this Kongra Lama (alias Kongra Paber) it is promised me and let me stick here here till the answer comes. Do consider it is 1 1/2 march N. of this and with these Macadamized roads. What a distance that is north of my now remote position north too of my dearly beloved Kancheng jow do look out for it and "pensee a moi" If the apparent obstacles have induced Campbell to recall me home, recall the recall I beseech you - fool that I was in my ignorance to say "I personally did not care 6d for such a p" it is of all points the most interesting and be that as it may - any [?] in the quarter is fatal to my prospects in another I ascended an average Mt of this district yesterday it was 14,000ft about and I had not a particle of jungle in