DARJEELING TO TONGLO. 115 
other inorganic substances, than the voluntary exercise of muscles and 
lungs.* 
Early on the following morning we left our shed, and, though the 
prospects as to weather were gloomy enough, proceeded up the moun- 
tain. "The road still ascends along a ridge, where the steep clay-banks, 
now slippery with the rain, are rendered passable by the interlacing 
roots of trees. At 8,000 feet we arrived at some fine masses of mica- 
ceous gneiss, protruding from the ridge, and covered with Mosses, 
Hepatiee, Ferns, Cyrtandree, Begonia, and especially creeping Ur- 
ticee, Such masses occur on the Sinchul and all other hills, and, how- 
ever large, project so awkwardly, and have so confused and contorted 
à stratification, and are so split, as to lead to the conclusion that if 
they present a fair sample of the nucleus of the mountains, the latter 
must consist of strangely shattered masses of rock, rather than uniformly 
upheaved strata. Indeed, the constantly sloping faces of the moun- 
tains, never broken into precipices, nor exhibiting a flat, are the indices 
of their being formed of shattered masses upheaved without order or 
regularity. Were their nucleus a solid mass of stratified rock, it must’ 
be inclined, with the rocks cropping out in precipices, somewhere ; or 
horizontal, and presenting level-topped hills ; but let the observer look 
from Darjeeling, over the faces of the hundreds of steep mountains and 
sharp ridges, and he will nowhere see an approach to a precipice. A 
landslip exposes angular masses, which retained the earth on the faces 
of the hills: the courses of the mountain torrent, too, are equally sig- 
nificant ;—always rapid, often all but a waterfall,—but never a dond 
Jide chute of more than a few feet. 
The rocks are scaled by means of the roots of trees, and from their 
top a good view of the surrounding vegetation is obtained. The trees 
are Oaks, Michelias, Lauri, Pyri, Pruni, and the characteristic plants I 
enumerated as growing on Sinchul. Arborescent Rhododendrons here 
commence,—first the R. arboreum, above it a silvery-leaved, white 2. 
macrophyllum; Vaccinia of several species, generally subscandent or 
epiphytal; Helwingia, climbing Araliacee, Stauntonia, and various Rudi ; 
but here, too, it began to rain violently, and the steepness and slip- 
periness of the path prevented my paying due attention to the vegeta- 
tion. At 9,000 feet we entered on a long flat, called ** Little Tonglo,” 
* A very common Tasmanian Frog utters a sound that appears to ring in an - 
underground vaulted chamber beneath the feet. 
Q2 
