LJ 
150 DR. HOOKER' S MISSION TO INDIA. 
two Calcutta collectors have not one spark of energy, and I have well- 
nigh lost pity and patience for them. ‘The native of the plains passes 
such jokes on a hill-man, who leaves his mountains for a season, as a 
cockney does on a Yorkshireman ; and, vice versá, the Lepcha dearly 
loves to catch a Bengalee in the hills; and I cannot keep the younger 
ones of our party from making game of the collectors, than whom it 
were impossible to be cumbered with more useless beings, for whether 
well-housed and fed at Darjeeling, or employed elsewhere, they were 
thoroughly good for nothing. Their apathy, idleness, and self-conceit 
have extinguished my sympathy for their discomforts. 
As disappointing as anything was our inability to obtain any view ; 
aud that which such a position commands is described as very grand, 
embracing the snowy range from far west in Nepal, to Chumalari in 
Thibet; including Kinchinjunga and the Sikkim forests of snowed 
peaks towards the centre, the deep valleys on either hand intersected 
by innumerable mountain ridges; the courses of the rivers Teesta, 
Konki, and Cosy, from their snowy courses, through the Sub-Hima- 
laya; and the whole of the plains, from the foot of the hills, with the 
Morung Terai skirting their base, to the Ganges or Rajmahal hills in 
the extreme south. For three days did we patiently wait; but neither 
to east, west, north, or south could we see one inch beyond the 
mountain-top. At length, the rain (but not the clouds) dispersing, we 
gladly took the opportunity of letting the tent dry in the wind, and 
started on our departure. 
During the whole of the 27th, from 7 a. m. to 11 P.M., the mean 
temperature was 51°8°; the thermometer never varied 6'5 degrees, 
standing at 47:5? in the morning, 54° at 1 P. m. (its maximum), and 
50-7? at night, and on the following morning the same. The sunk 
thermometer (two feet six inches) maintained the constant temperature 
of 50'7?. Though the rain was so heavy, there was always evapora- 
tion going on, the atmosphere, though sufficiently damp, never indi- 
. eating the saturation point; the mean dew-point 50:3, and the 
humidity, consequently, 0:973. 
- Having sent the tents and men forward, we tarried a few hours on 
the top, in alternate shower and sunshine, vainly hoping for the most 
modestly narrow view of anything at all beyond mist and Rhodo- 
dendrons. I had sunk a thermometer at the very top, to the same 
depth as the one below, which indicated a “ bottom heat” of 49°7°, 
