IX VARIOUS PAKTS OF THE GLOBE. 11 



top; through deep humid forests of oak and Magnoliacece, 

 many Lauri, both Tetranthera and Cinnamomum, one species 

 of the latter ascending to 8500 feet, and one of Tetranthera to 

 9000. Chesnut and wahmt here appeared, with ElcBOcarpus, 

 and some leguminous trees, which however did not ascend to 

 6000 feet. Scarlet flowers of Vaccinmm serpens, an epiphytical 

 species, were strewed about, and above these the great blossoms 

 of a Rhododendro7i and Manglietia ? lay together on the ground. 

 The Rhododendron Balhousia is a beautiful epiphytical species, 

 growing on the larger oak limbs, and bearing clusters of 6 to 8 

 flowers of great size ; they are pure w hite, and deliciously scented 

 of lemon. The Manglietia forms a large tree, of which the foliage 

 is very dense, and of a deep shining green. Most of the flowers 

 drop unexpanded from the tree, and have a very sweet aromatic 

 smell ; they are as large as the fist, the outer sepals purple^ the 

 inner pure white. It may be tlie Liriodendron liliifera, Willd. 

 (Rox. ii. p. 654). The fruit differs from both 3Iagnolia and 

 Michelia, and I need not say equally so from Liriodendrofi. In 

 every flower I picked up, there was a grub of a lamellicorn 

 beetle in the centre of the receptacle. 



Heavy rain came on at 3 p.m., obliging us to take insufficient 

 shelter under the trees, and finally to seek the nearest camping 

 ground. For this purpose we ascended to a spring, called Sim- 

 sibong, at an elevation of 6000 feet. The narrowness of the 

 ridge prevented our pitching the tent, small as it was ; but the 

 Lepchas rapidly constructed a house, and thatched it with bam- 

 boo and the broad leaves of the wild plantain. A table was 

 then raised in the middle, of 4 posts and as many cross pieces of 

 wood, lashed with strips of bamboo. Across this, pieces of 

 bamboo were laid, ingeniously flattened, by taking cylinders, 

 crimping them all round, and then cutting each down one side, 

 so that it opens into a flat slab, several inches across. Similar 

 but longer and lower erections, one on each side the table, 

 formed bed or chair ; and in one short hour, half a dozen men, 

 with only long knives and active hands, had fitted us with a to- 

 lerably water-tight furnished house. A thick flooring of bamboo 

 leaves kept the feet dry, and a screen of these and other foliage 

 all round rendered the habitation tolerably warm. 



It is a little below this elevation, 3000 to 5000 feet, that great 

 scandent trees of the forests, either wholly enveloping trunks of 

 others or twisting around them, strangle the greatest of these, 

 which, decaying within their folds, leave the reticulated sheath 

 of climbers as one of the most remarkable vegetable phenomena 

 of these mountains. They belong to several orders, and may 

 be roughly classified in two groups— 1. those which merely twine, 

 and by constricting certain parts of their support, produce death ; 



