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ISKARDO.
From the South.
Pl. I.
J. W. del. W. L. Walton, Lithog. Printed by Hullmandel & Walton.
WESTERN HIMALAYA
AND
TIBET;
A NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY THROUGH THE
MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN INDIA,
DURING THE YEARS 1847-8.
BY
THOMAS THOMSON, M.D., F.L.S.,
ASSISTANT SURGEON BENGAL ARMY.
LONDON:
REEVE AND CO., HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1852.
PRINTED BY
JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
PREFACE.
On the termination of my journey in Tibet, I submittedto the Indian Government a detailed report of my observationsin that country. It was my original intention torequest the permission of the Court of Directors to publishthis report in the form in which it was drawn up;but after my return to England, this plan was, at thesuggestion of friends, abandoned for that now followed.
At the time of my appointment to the Tibet Mission,my attention had not been specially directed to theHimalaya, but I have since had many opportunities ofstudying that chain of mountains. My first definite impressionsof Himalayan geography were received frommy fellow-travellers, Major Cunningham and CaptainHenry Strachey. The latter gentleman had just completedone of the most adventurous journeys ever madein the Himalaya; and Major Cunningham's knowledgeivof the geography of Northern India is so accurate andextensive, that the delay in the publication of his map,although caused by the devotion of his leisure time toother branches of research, is a subject of deep regret toall who know its value. More recently I have had thegood fortune to travel in the Eastern Himalaya with Dr.Hooker, and it was a source of great gratification to me,when we met, to find that in studying these mountainsat opposite extremities of the chain, the results at whichwe had arrived were almost identical.
My botanical collections, which were very extensive,have as yet been only roughly assorted, and the namesof plants given in the present work are chiefly derivedfrom a careful comparison of specimens with the HookerianHerbarium at Kew,—a collection which, as is well knownto Botanists, both from its extent and from the liberalitywith which it is thrown open to students of t