SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
way through a dense forest, where every branch was hung with moss and long grey lichen, and with a thick carpet of moss under my feet, I found the springs. The water is moderately hot and is used by the Lepchas in cases of rheumatism and skin disease. The bathing arrangements are delightfully primitive; a hole is dug in the ground or a wall built of stones, the crevices are filled with moss and into this the water is run and the bathers sit, men and women indiscriminately, with no shelter except sometimes a shawl thrown over a bamboo support. The patients sit in these baths for from four to eight hours a day for a period of ten to fourteen days. The Lepchas have the most profound belief in the efficacy of the water and declare the cures are marvellous. I have visited many of these hot springs, which constantly occur in the valleys throughout, the Himalayas at a certain elevation, and in some of them the temperature reaches 160°, and one where I stayed for a short time was 120°. I need hardly say that I had my own bath tub in my tent and ran the water into it from the spring by means of a long india-rubber hose. I have no doubt, were better arrangements made, the beneficial qualities of the waters might be made much more useful than at present; now they are used only by occasional visitors who, to reach them, have to undertake difficult and hazardous journeys, for nearly all the springs are found in more or less inaccessible spots lying far off the ordinary roads.
Talung Monastery is one of the most sacred monasteries in Sikhim, and is full of very beautiful and interesting objects of veneration, nearly all real works of art. During the Nepalese invasion of 1816, many of these objects were removed from other monasteries and brought here for safety, and have remained here ever since. Unlike most monasteries, an inventory is kept and most carefully scrutinised from time to time by the Maharaja, and owing to these precautions, the collection has remained intact.
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