DARJEELING TO TONGLO. 113 
Others as bitterly complain of the cold climate and want of amusement. 
In fact, the malady which each has suffered, or is suffering, is the 
index to the patient’s feelings. Chronic diseases, as said before, and 
especially liver complaints of long standing, are not benefited by a 
residence on these hills; though how much worse they might have 
become in the plains, does not show. I cannot hear that the climate 
aggravates, but it certainly does not remove them. Whoever is suf- 
fering from the debilitating effects of any of the multifarious acute 
maladies of the plains, finds instant relief, and acquires a stock of 
health that enables-him to resist fresh attacks, under circumstances 
similar to those which before engendered them. 
Natives of the low country, and especially Bengalees, are far from 
enjoying the climate as Europeans do, being liable to sharp attacks of - 
fever and ague, from which the poorly clad natives are not exempt. It 
is, however, difficult to estimate the effects of exposure upon the latter 
people, who sleep on the bare and often damp ground, insufficiently 
nourished, and adhering, with their characteristic prejudices, to the 
attire of a torrid climate and a vegetable diet, under skies to which 
these are least of all adapted. 
Above Simonbong, a mountain-path, very little frequented and 
chiefly used as a route to Nepal, leads to the top of Tonglo. As usual, 
it always runs along ridges of the mountain, through a deep forest of 
Oaks, Magnolias, Chestnut, and Walluut, with the Tree-fern and other 
plants seen on the ascent from Kursiong, as Elæocarpus, and many 
Laurinee. The enormous white flowers of the epiphytal Rhododen- 
dron lay in profusion on the ground, and with them the equally large, 
unexpanded, egg-shaped ones of the white Magnolia, exhaling a deli- 
cious aromatic fragrance. A large Lamellicorn beetle appears to form 
a nidus in the latter; for I found the egg-shaped mass, formed by the 
imbricating thick petals, to be perforated on one side, and a large 
grub in the centre of the column of pistils, or sometimes, instead, a 
beetle, that would belong to the old genus Melolontha, and which was . 
far too big to have got in by the perforation. 
Very heavy rain came on at 3 P.M., which obliged us to seek the 
insufficient shelter of the trees, where we were presently so soaked 
that it was necessary to encamp; for which purpose we ascended to a 
spring, called Simsibong, about 6,000 feet up. The place was too 
narrow to allow of pitching the tent, but the Lepchas quickly built a 
VOL. II. a 
