Western Himalaya and Tibet : a narrative of a journey through the mountains of northern India, during the years 1847-8 / by Thomas Thomson.

  • Thomas Thomson
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Western Himalaya and Tibet : a narrative of a journey through the mountains of northern India, during the years 1847-8 / by Thomas Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1847.] FAGU. 85 few trees of Quercus semicarjpifolia, the alpine oak of the western Himalaya, an European-looking and partially deciduous species, and of Picea Webbiana, or Pindrow, the silver fir of the Indian mountains, a dark sombre- looking pine, abundant in the forests of the interior. These trees may be adopted as the characteristics of the subalpine zone, in every part of which, from 9000 to about 12,000 feet, which is the highest limit of tree vegetation in the Western Himalaya, they abound. On Mahasu they are entirely confined to the crest of the ridge, and form no part of the forest below. The descent from the top of Mahasu to the Eagu bungalow, is at first abrupt, the road leaving the ridge to enter the forest on the northern face, and winding down, after a few hundred yards of bare stony slope, among dense forest, among which it continues for a couple of miles, rising at last rather steeply to the crest of the ridge at the point where it resumes a northerly direction. Here the bungalow of Eagu has been built, at an eleva- tion of 8200 feet, at the very base of the steep mountain ridge behind, which rises abruptly, to a height of six or seven hundred feet. The bungalow faces the north-east, and commands a most superb view of the snowy range beyond the Sutlej, with occasional glimpses of the Jumno- Gangetic snows on the right hand. On my arrival at Eagu, in the midst of a pelting fall of rain, I found the bungalow already occupied by my fellow-travellers, and before a bright and comfortable fire I soon forgot the discomfort of my wet ride, which indeed was not to be complained of, as it was only what might fairly have been expected in the middle of the d 2