SUBALPINE REGIONS i8i 



and box, and wild vines and all sorts of rare flowers. 

 The southern slopes have quite a different set of trees 

 and shrubs, the great scarlet-flowering tree rhododendron 

 being resplendent. 



It is delightful to camp in the cool regions of the pine 

 forest after the rains, when the climate is splendid. The 

 tent is pitched by some gurgling stream in a little dell, 

 where there is a smooth turf for the tent, studded with 

 scarlet potentillas and innumerable lovely flowers, and 

 bordered by maidenhair and other feathery ferns, of 

 which I have counted fifteen kinds in a space of twenty 

 yards. Clumps of graceful ringals are placed on the 

 slopes just in the right spots to form a most perfect land- 

 scape garden, with never an incongruity, such as artificial 

 ones are ever presenting. The great gray stems of splen- 

 did pines {Pmus excelsa) stand dark with deep shadows 

 cast on the verdant sod. There are groves of enormously 

 tall cypress, straight, and 150 feet high, with sharp- 

 pointed tops, all of different ages and heights (not uniform 

 as in plantations), thinned out only by storms and old 

 age. Then, in the more sheltered northern breast of the 

 mountain, stretch miles of the lofty raga forest, silver fir- 

 trees like masts, and 12 feet in girth, towering to the skies 

 and standing close together ; and there are alternate groups 

 and stretches of the elegant weeping spruce, dolchella, 

 even taller and grander stems. There are single trees stand- 

 ing in the open and at the edges of the forest, absolutely 

 perfect, with every branch in its place, curved and drooping 

 to the ground, more picturesquely placed by Nature than 

 by the most artistic lover of landscape gardening. 



The middle ranges of the Himalayas are being exploited 

 for tea planting. The climate and soil are so varied that 

 the plants of all countries are represented, and almost 

 anything will grow if its proper region is found. Among 



