called here the “ yellow raspberry.” Scattered oaks of
a noble species, with large lamellated cups and magnificent
foliage, succeeded; and along the ridge of the
mountain to Kursiong (a dawk bungalow at about 4800
feet), the change in the flora was complete.
The spring of this region and elevation most vividly
recalled that of England. The oak flowering, the birch
bursting into leaf, the violet, Stellaria, and Arum,
Vaccinium, wild strawberry, maple, geranium, bramble.
A colder wind blew here: mosses and lichens carpeted
the banks and roadsides: the birds and insects were
very different from those below; and everything proclaimed
the marked change in elevation, and not only
in this, but also in the season, for I had left the winter
of the tropics and here encountered the spring of the
temperate zone.
These flowers are so notoriously the harbingers of a
European spring that their presence carries one home
at once: but, as species, they differ from their European
prototypes, and are accompanied at this elevation, and
for 3000 feet higher up, with tree-ferns, Pothos, bananas,
palms, figs, peppers, numbers of epiphytal Orchids, and
similar genuine tropical genera. The uniform temperature
and humidity of the climate here favour the
extension of tropical plants into a temperate region ;
exactly as the same conditions cause similar forms to
attain higher latitudes in the southern hemisphere (as
in New Zealand, Tasmania, South Chili, &c.) than they
do in the northern.
Kursiong bungalow, where I stopped for a few hours,
is superbly placed, on a narrow mountain ridge. The
April, 1848. PACHEEM. 101
west window looks down the valley of the Balasun,
the east into that of the Mahanuddee: both of these
rivers rise from the outer range, and flow in broad,
deep, and steep valleys (about 4000 feet deep) which
are richly wooded from the Terai to their tops.
From Kursiong a very steep zigzag leads up the
mountain, through a magnificent forest of chesnut,
walnut, oaks, and laurels. I t is difficult to conceive a
grander mass of vegetation :—the straight shafts of the
timber-trees shooting aloft, some naked and clean,
with grey, pale, or brown b a rk ; others literally clothed
for yards with a continuous garment of epiphytes, one
mass of blossoms, especially the white Orchids, which
bloom in a profuse manner, whitening their trunks
like snow. More bulky trunks were masses of interlacing
climbers, enclosing a hollow, once filled by the
strangled tree, which had long ago decayed away.
From the sides and summit of these, supple branches
hung forth, either leafy or naked; the latter resembling
cables flung from one tree to another, swinging in the
breeze, their rocking motion increased by the weight of
great bunches of ferns or Orchids, which were perched
aloft in the loops. Perpetual moisture nourishes this
dripping forest; and pendulous mosses and lichens are
met with in profusion.
I t was very late before I arrived at Pacheem bungalow,
the most sinister-looking rest-house I ever saw, stuck
on a little cleared spur of the mountain, surrounded by
dark forests, overhanging a profound valley, enveloped
in mists and rain, and hideous in architecture, being a
miserable attempt to unite the Swiss cottage with the