DARJEELING TO TONGLO. 921 
an examination from the botanist, that it is next to impossible to define 
the limits of the ten or twelve species easily distinguished by the 
Lepehas. One, a very large kind, is used for Choongis, or water- 
buckets, it is as thick as a man’s thigh; another for quivers, a third 
for flutes, a fourth for walking-sticks, again another for plaiting-work 
(baskets, &c.), and a sixth for arrows; while a still larger sort serves 
for bows—the Lepcha bow being always made of a piece of Bamboo. 
It would take many pages to describe the numerous purposes which 
the various Bamboos serve, even in Sikkim alone. In an econo- 
mical point of view they may be classed into those which do, and 
those which do not, split readily. The young shoots of one or more 
are eaten; and the seeds of another, raw, or cooked, or made into a 
fermented drink. 
By two, p. m., we arrived at the bottom of the first valley, where a. 
stream called Rishi-hoat flows to the Runjeet, over beds of mica-schist, 
with boulders of gneiss from the hills above. Though the temperature 
was only 77°, the closeness of the valley and reflected heat from the 
black soil of the cultivated hills on either bank, rendered the air 
oppressively hot. Temperature of the waier 70°, and that of a little 
cataract which emptied itself into the stream hard by was 68°. 
Chloranthus, Ferns, ome fine Fici (one producing an enormous edible 
fruit, which is fleshy and good, especially when stewed), grew on the 
. banks, with a very handsome climbing 4maranthaceous plant, which 
covers the trunks of the loftiest timber-trees, at 5 and 6,000 feet, and 
completely obscures them. From the river we ascended a very steep 
cultivated slope (of 35° to our feelings, but steeps always appear very 
much more abrupt than they really are) : it was covered with a young 
maize crop. The Maize is occasionally hermaphrodite in Sikkim, the 
bisexual flowers forming an immense drooping panicle, and ripening 
small grains. This phenomenon is very rare, and the specimens of it - 
are preserved as great curiosities for presents; Campbell has procured 
me an excellent one. At a Lepcha village, the population turned out 
to look at us, men and women together, leaning their arms on one _ 
another’s shoulders, as school-boys wont to do: the men are active 
and lively, the women frank, children vastly humorous and chubby. 
We gave the latter, as usual, some small silver coin, which their parents 
pierce and hang, together with all sorts of silver and copper ornaments, - 
pebbles, beads made of seed, coarse turquoise, &c., roundtheir little necks, 
