Note 279 — Chapter XXIV

Some doubt still hangs over the identity of this mountain, chiefly owing to Turner’s having neglected to observe his geographical positions. I saw a much loftier mountain than this, bearing from Bhomtso north 87° east, and it was called Chumulari by the Tibetan Sepoys; but it does not answer to Turner’s description of an isolated snowy peak, such as he approached within three miles; and though in the latitude he assigned to it, is fully sixty miles to the east of his route. A peak, similar to the one he describes, is seen from Tonglo and Sinchul (see vol. i., p. 125 and p. 185); this is the one alluded to above, and it is identified by both Tibetans and Lepchas at Dorjiling as the true Chumulari, and was measured by Colonel Waugh, who placed it in lat. 27° 49′ north, long. 89° 18′ east. The latter position, though fifteen miles south of what Turner gives it, is probably correct; as Pemberton found that Turner had put other places in Bhotan twenty miles too far north. Moreover, in saying that it is visible from Purnea in the plains of Bengal, Turner refers to Kinchinjunga, whose elevation was then unknown. Dr. Campbell (“Bengal As. Soc. Jour.,” 1848), describes Chumulari from oral information, as an isolated mountain encircled by twenty-one goompas, and perambulated by pilgrims in five days; the Lachoong Phipun, on the other hand, who was a Lama, and well acquainted with the country, affirmed that Chumulari has many tops, and cannot be perambulated; but that detached peaks near it may be, and that it is to a temple near one of these that pilgrims resort. Again, the natives use these names very vaguely, and as that of Kinchinjunga is often applied equally to all or any part of the group of snows between the Lachen and Tambur rivers, so may the term Chumulari have been used vaguely to Captain Turner or to me. I have been told that an isolated, snow-topped, venerated mountain rises about twenty miles south of the true Chumulari, and is called “Sakya-khang” (Sakya’s snowy mountain), which may be that seen from Dorjiling; but I incline to consider Campbell’s and Waugh’s mountain as the one alluded to by Turner, and it is to it that I here refer as bearing north 115° 30′ east from Bhomtso.