suburban gothic;—it combined a maximum of discomfort
with a minimum of good looks or good cheer.
I was some time in finding the dirty housekeeper, in
an outhouse hard by, and then in waking him. As he
led me up the crazy verandah, and into a broad ghostly
room, without glass in the windows, or fire, or any one
comfort, my mind recurred to the stories told of the
horrors of the Hartz forest, and of the benighted
traveller’s situation therein. Cold sluggish beetles
clung to the damp walls,—and these I immediately
secured. After due exertions and perseverance with
the wet wood, a fire smoked lustily, and, by cajoling
the gnome of a housekeeper, I procured the usual roast
fowl and potatoes, with the accustomed sauce of a
strong smoky and singed flavour.
Pacheem stands at an elevation of nearly 7300 feet,
and as I walked out on the following morning I met
with English-looking plants in abundance, but was too
early in the season to get aught but the foliage of most.
Epiphytes were rare, still I found some white and
purple Ccelogynes, and other Orchids, and a most noble
white rhododendron, whose enormous and delicious
lemon-scented blossoms strewed the ground. ■ The
trees were one half oaks, one quarter Magnolias, and
nearly another quarter laurels, amongst which grew
Himalayan kinds of birch, alder, maple, holly, bird-
cherry, common cherry, and apple. The absence of
leguminous plants was remarkable, and the most prominent
botanical feature in the vegetation of this region:
it is too high for the tropical tribes of the warmer
elevations, too low for the Alpines, and probably too
moist for those of temperate regions ; cool, equable,
humid climates being generally unfavourable to these
plants. I found very few native species of grasses ;
though both Poa annua and white Dutch clover
flourished where accidentally disseminated, but only in
artificially cleared spots. Of ferns I collected about sixty
species, chiefly of temperate genera. The supremacy
of this temperate region consists in the infinite number
of forest trees, in the absence (in the usual proportion at
any rate) of such common orders as Compositoe, Legu-
minosoe, Cruciferoe, Ranunculaceoe, and Grasses; and
in the predominance of rarer and more local families,
as those of Rhododendron, Camellia, Magnolia, Ivy,
Cornel, Honeysuckle, Hydrangea, Begonia, and Epiphytic
Orchids.
From Pacheem, the road runs in a northerly direction
to Dorjiling, still along the Balasun valley, till the
saddle of the great mountain Sinchul is crossed. This
is narrow, and stretches east and west, and from it a
spur projects northwards for five or six miles, amongst
the many mountains still intervening between it and
the snows. This saddle (alt. 7,400 feet) crossed, one is
fairly amongst the mountains : the plains behind are cut
off by it ; and in front, the snows may be seen when the
weather is propitious. The valleys on the inner side
of the mountain run northwards, and discharge their
streams into great rivers, which, coming from the snow,
wind amongst the hills, and débouche into the Teesta,
to the east, where it divides Sikkim from Bhotan.
Dorjiling station occupies a narrow ridge, which
divides into two spurs, and descends steeply to the bed