122 Information respecting Botanical Travellers, 



cipices ; and the ground was so slippery, the surface snow being 

 frozen into ice, that falls were very frequent, but happily not at- 

 tended with injury. It then became less steep, the path running 

 along swardy ridges or through woods. In the evening I came on 

 the coolies, who had halted at a place evidently often used for that 

 purpose, and who positively refused to proceed a single step further. 

 But as Captain Pemberton and Lieut. Blake had proceeded on, I de- 

 termined on following them, hoping that my departure would sti- 

 mulate the coolies to further exertions. After passing over about a 

 mile of open swardy ground I found myself benighted on the bor- 

 ders of a wood, into which I plunged in the hopes of meeting my 

 companions ; after proceeding for about half an hour slipping, sli- 

 ding, and falling in all imaginable directions, and obtaining no 

 answers to my repeated halloos ; after having been plainly informed 

 that I was a blockhead by a hurkarah, who as long as it was light pro- 

 fessed to follow me to the death — *' Master go on, and I will follow 

 thee to the last gasp with love and loyalty" — I thought it best to 

 attempt returning, and after considerable difficulty succeeded in 

 reaching the coolies at 8^ p.m., when I spread my bedding under a 

 tree, too glad to find one source of comfort. I resumed the march 

 early next morning, and overtook my companions about a mile be- 

 yond the furthest point I had reached ; and as I expected, found 

 that they had passed the night in great discomfort. We soon found 

 how impossible it would have been for the coolies to have proceeded 

 at night, as the ground was so excessively slippery from the half- 

 melted snow and from its clayey nature, that it was as much as they 

 could do to keep their legs in open day-light. We continued de- 

 scending uninterruptedly, and almost entirely through the same 

 wood, until we reached Sing6 at 9^^ a.m. The total distance of the 

 march was 15 miles — the greatest amount of ascent was about 4500 

 feet, of descent 6100 feet. We remained at Singe up to the 18th, at 

 which time some coolies still remained behind. On the night of the 

 17th snow fell all around, though not within 1000 feet of Sing^. 

 The comparative mildness of the climate here was otherwise indi- 

 cated by the abundance of rice cultivation about and below it. It 

 stands on the border of the wooded and grassy tracts so well marked 

 in the interior of Bootan, at least in this direction, and about mid- 

 way on the left side of a very deep ravine, drained by the river 

 Koosee. On both sides of this villages were plentiful ; on the oppo- 

 site or western side alone 1 counted about twenty ; about all there 

 is much cultivation of rice and wheat ; the surface of the earth where 

 untilled being covered with grassy vegetation and low shrubs. 



