ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



I. — Contributions to a History of the Relation between Climate 

 and Vegetation iji various parts of the Globe. 



No. 13. — Notes, chiefly Botanical, made during an Excursion 

 from Darjiling to Tonglo, a lofty mountain on the confines of 

 Sihkim and Nepal. By J. D. Hooker, M.D., F.R.S. 



[Reprinted from the ' Journal of the Asiatic Society' for May, 1849, -with 

 corrections by the Author.] 



3Iay 19/^5 1848.— Left Darjiling in the forenoon of this day, 

 accompanied by my friend C. Barnes, Esq. We took with us a 

 small tent, about 15 Lepcha (Sikkim native) and Ghorkha 

 (Nepal) coolies, with as few other servants as possible, these 

 being bad mountaineers, and our route involving much ascent and 

 descent. The direction is W. ; the distance in a straight line little 

 above 12 miles, but occupying good 3 days' march: for we have 

 to descend from Darjiling 5000 feet to the intervening river beds, 

 cross these and several spurs of 1000 — 1500 feet, and thence 

 ascend to a summit 10,000 feet above the sea. The route is 

 wholly within the Himalaya, and always through the forest 

 region ; large trees extending to the top of Tonglo, which is 

 below the lower limit of Alpine pines in this parallel, and of 

 the Arctic vegetation of the loftier Himalaya. 



A Lepcha carries liis load in similarly formed, but much 

 ruder baskets than those used by the Nepal races, and 1 observed 

 that he uniformly used shoulder-straps, often without the belt 

 across the forehead.* The weight thus transported to great distances 



* May not the use of the head-strap be a predisposing cause of goitre, by 

 inducing congestion of the laryngeal vessels ? The Lepcha is certainly far 

 more free from this disease than the Bhotea, or than any of the tribes of E. 

 Nepal I have mixed with, and he is both more idle and less addicted to the 

 head-strap as a porter. I have seen it to be almost universal in some vil- 

 lages of Bhoteas, where the head-strap alone is used in carrying both 

 summer and winter crops ; and also amongst the salt-traders, or rather 

 those families who carry salt from the passes to the Nepalese villages, and 

 who have very frequently no shoulder-straps, but invariably head-bands. 

 I am far from attributing all goitre, even in the mountains, to this practice, 

 but I think it is proved that the disease is most prevalent in the mountainous 

 regions of both the old and new world, and that in these the practice of sup- 

 porting enormous loads by the cervical muscles is frequent. It is also found 

 in the Himalayan sheep and goats, which accompany the salt-traders, and 

 whose burthens are supported, in ascending, by a band passing under the 

 throat. 



VOL. VII. B 



