41 6 HIMALAYAN FOREST FLORA. 



nals, assures us that " the vegetation is, in some 

 respects, not to be surpassed by anything in the 

 tropics." * The white-flowered magnolia (Magnolia 

 Excelsis [Wall.]) still forms a predominant tree at 7000 

 and 8000 feet, and in 1848, at the time Sir J. Hooker 

 wrote, he states u it blossomed so profusely that the 

 forests of Senchal appeared as if sprinkled with snow. " f 

 Above that again comes the range of the purple- 

 flowered variety (M. Campellii] which seldom descends 

 below 8000 feet. Then among the rhododendrons a 

 leading variety here is R. Argenteum which " grows 

 a great tree 40 feet high, with magnificent leaves 

 12 to 15 inches long, deep green, and silvery below." 

 Senchal also possessed the great advantage of an 

 abundant supply of pure water of such excellent quality 

 that pipes have of late years been laid to convey it 

 to Darjeeling, for the use of that sanitarium, and the 

 town at present draws its water supply from these 

 splendid springs at Senchal. All these circumstances 

 of course seemed to tell in its favour. 



The causes however which eventually compelled 

 the abandonment of Senchal, was its exposed 

 position on the very crest of the ridge at the head of 

 the valley leading up from the plains. This was a 

 fatal error: because it ignored the fact, the truth of 

 which has since been so generally recognised, that 

 wherever mountains rise out of tropical plains, malarial 

 fever of severe type invariably haunts the foothills and 

 valleys at the base of such chains, and is carried up 

 by the winds to very great heights. Now the pre- 



* Himalayan Journals, by Sir Joseph D. Hooker, 1848, Edit, 

 published 1854, Vol. i., pp. 125 6. 

 f Ibid. 

 Ibid., p. 126. 



