ZONES OF VEGETATION 63
saves two miles in six. At last the Residency, or rather
the foliage which conceals it, seems less hopelessly distant
than it did, and coming out again upon the white,
well-made road, one climbs at an easy gradient to the
capital of Sikkim. On the left is the deep green cutting
of the river we have crossed, a league in width and lost
A bridge over the Rong-ni.
behind a ten-mile distant corner. The double Residency
gates open and shut behind one, and through the tree
ferns and the dying bamboos of the drive* one emerges
into the English roses and clean, short turf of Mrs.
Claude White’s home-made Paradise.
The Residency brings a whiff of England into this
* A ll the bamboos of the Gangtok district fertilised and died in 1904.
