DARJEELING TO THE BORDERS OF BHOTAN. 945 
quented that there is no chance of obstruction, the others, which 
might be inadvertently taken, are more populous. Ours, of course, lay 
down the river, whose banks were far too rugged, here, to be pursued. 
À marriage procession soon came up, or rather the bridegroom-half of 
the party, a handsome young Lepcha, leading a cow for the marriage 
feast. After talking to him a little, he volunteered to show us the 
path, which led through a thick forest, along the steep hill-side : it 
soon descended to a narrow belt of dense jungle, with a weak Egui- 
setum, five feet high, climbing among rank Grasses, small Palms, &e. — 
On the rocky dry eminences Pinus longifolia grew, and on the flats 
the beautiful Cycas pectinata, with a stem about ten feet high, and a 
tuft of foliage like that of C. revoluta. Many Scitaminee, but especially 
Curcuma, were springing up, and the character of the vegetation was 
altogether that of the Terai. 
The contrast of the tropical Cycas and Scotch-looking Pine was 
most wonderful. Much of the forest had been burnt, and we traversed 
great blackened patches, where the heat was terrific, and increased by 
the prostrate and still-burning trunks of great trees, which smoulder 
for months, and leave a heap of white ashes. The larger timber, being 
hollow in the centre, a current of air is produced, that eats away all 
the circumference, the sides fall in over the burning centre, and allis — 
consumed. You are often startled, when walking in the forest, by the — 
hot blast proceeding from such trunks, which are approached without — 
suspicion of their being other than cold dead trunks. e 
Leaving the forest, the path runs along the river-bank, and over the 
-great masses of rock which strew its course. Skipping from stone to 
stone, in these close valleys, carrying an umbrella and stick, is very 
toilsome work. There is much mica in the sand between the rocks, and — 
much of the sand is red—disintegrated jasper, probably, or quartz tinged - 
with oxide of iron, exactly similar to what I met with on the banks of à 
the Ganges. The stunted Ficus and Croton are the common plants of 
the rocky water-side, with a creeping Polypodium, Cyperus, Kyllingia, — 
Carex, Panicum, Sida, ke. Fici are the prevailing trees: some are very - 
handsome, especially the F. elastica, whose foliage is eminently beauti- - 
ful. Bassia butyracea? also occurs—the Fel Pate of the Lepchas, - 
from the seeds of which they express a concrete oil, which is received = 
and hardens in bamboo vessels. On the forest-skirts, Hoya, parasi- - 
tical Orchidee and Ferns, Hirea, Hiptage, Bauhinia, and a shrubby | 
