6 TEESTA VALLEY. Chap. XVIII. 



ridge at 7000 feet elevation. The last ascent is up a steep 

 rounded cone with a broad flat top, covered with dwarf 

 bamboo, a few oaks, laurels, magnolias, and white-flowered 

 rhododendron trees (E. argenteum), which obstructed the 

 view. I hung the barometers near one of the many 

 chaits on the summit, where there is also a rude temple, 

 in which worship is performed once a year. The elevation 

 is 8,671 feet by my observations.* The geological forma- 

 tion of Tendong in some measure accounts for its peculiar 

 form. On the conical summit are hard quartzoze 

 porphyries, which have apparently forced up the gneiss 

 and slates, which dip in all directions from the top, and 

 are full of injected veins of quartz. Below 7000 feet, 

 mica-schist prevails, always inclined at a very high angle j 

 and I found jasper near Namtchi, with other indications of 

 Plutonic action. 



The descent on the north side was steep, through a rank 

 vegetation, very different from that of the south face. The 

 oaks are very grand, and I measured one (whose trunk was 

 decayed, and split into three, however), which I found to 

 be 49 feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground. Near Temi 

 (alt. 4,770 feet) I gathered the fruit of Kadsura, a 

 climbing plant allied to Magnolia, bearing round heads of 

 large fleshy red drupes, which are pleasantly acid and 

 much eaten ; the seeds are very aromatic. 



From Temi the road descends to the Teesta, the course 

 of which it afterwards follows. The valley was fearfully hot, 

 and infested with mosquitos and peepsas. Many fine plants 

 grew in it : f I especially noticed Aristolochia saccata, 



* 8,663 by Col. Waugh's trigonometrical observations. 

 + Especially upon the broad terraces of gravel, some of which are upwards of a 

 mile long, and 200 feet above the stream : they are covered with boulders of rock, 

 and are generally opposite feeders of the river. 



