206 Information respecting Botanical Travellers. 



scribed in the Bootan collection, I shall change the name of the very- 

 finest hitherto found, and dignify it by the name Herbertiana. The 

 prevailing tree was the Smithian pine. We saw scarcely any villages, 

 and but very little cultivation. Jaisa is a good-sized village ; it was 

 comparatively clean, and the houses were, I think, better than most 

 we had hitherto seen. There is a good deal of wheat cultivation 

 around the village, which is not the only occupant of the valley : 

 this is the highest we had yet seen, and is perhaps one of the high- 

 est inhabited valleys known, as it is 9410 feet above the sea; it is 

 drained by a small stream, and is of less extent than either that of 

 Byagur or Bhoomlungtung. The surrounding hills are covered with 

 open fir woods, and are of no considerable height. Larks, magpies, 

 and red-legged crows, continued plentiful, but on leaving this valley 

 we lost them. 



March 5th. We proceeded up the valley, keeping along the banks 

 of the stream for some time ; we then commenced ascending a ridge, 

 the top of which we reached about noon ; its elevation was 10,930 

 feet. The descent from this was for about 2500 feet very steep and 

 uninterrupted, until we reached a small torrent at an elevation of 

 8473 feet; from this we ascended slightly through thick woods 

 of oak, &c. until we came on open grassy tracts, through which we 

 now gradually descended at a great height above the stream, which 

 we had left a short time before. We continued descending rather 

 more rapidly until we came to a point almost immediately above 

 Tongsa, by about 1000 feet ; from this the descent was excessively 

 steep. The distance was 13 miles. On the ascent snow was com- 

 mon from a height of 9000 feet upwards. The vegetation on this, 

 or the eastern side, was in some places similar to that above Byagur. 

 Beautiful fir woods formed the chief vegetation, until we came close 

 to the summit, when it changed completely. Rhododendrons, 

 Bogh putiah, and a species of birch and bamboos, were common, 

 mixed with a few black pines. The woods through which we de- 

 scended, were in the higher elevations almost entirely of rhododen- 

 drons ; and lower down chiefly of various species of oak and maple 

 — the former being dry and very open, the latter humid and choked 

 up with underwood. After coming on the open grassy country we 

 did not revert to well- wooded tracts. No villages occurred, nor did 

 we see any signs of cultivation after leaving the valley of Jaisa until 

 w^e came near Tongsa, above which barley fields were not uncommon. 

 Tongsa, although the second, or at any rate the third place in Bootan, 

 is as miserable a place as anybody would wish to see. It is wretchedly 

 situated in a very narrow ravine, drained by a petty stream, on the 



