Aprit,, 1848. SCENERY AT FOOT OF HIMALAYA. 103 



abundance, for the torrents cut a straight, deep, and steep 

 course down the hill flanks : the gulleys they traverse are 

 choked with vegetation and bridged by fallen trees, whose 

 trunks are richly clothed with Dendrobium Pierardi and 

 other epiphytical Orchids, with pendulous Lycojpodia and 

 many ferns, Jloj/a, Scitaminece, and similar types of the 

 hottest and dampest climates. 



The bungalow at Pimkabaree was good — which was 

 well, as my luggage-bearers were not come up, and there 

 were no signs of them along the Terai road, which I saw 

 winding below me. My scanty stock of paper being full 

 of plants, I was reduced to the strait of botanising, and 

 throwing away my specimens. The forest was truly magni- 

 ficent along the steep mountain sides. The apparently large 

 proportion of deciduous trees was far more considerable 

 than I had expected ; partly, probably, clue to the abun- 

 dance of the Dillenia, Cassia, and Sterculia, whose copious 

 fruit was all the more conspicuous from the leafless condition 

 of the plant. The white or lilac blossoms of the convolvulus- 

 like Thmbergia, and other Acant/iacecs,were the predominant 

 features of the shrubby vegetation, and very handsome. 



All around, the hills rise steeply five or six thousand 

 feet, clothed in a dense deep-green dripping forest. 

 Torrents rush down the slopes, their position indicated 

 by the dipping of the forest into their beds, or the occa- 

 sional cloud of spray rising above some more boisterous 

 part of their course. From the road, at and a little above 

 Punkabaree, the view is really superb, and very instructive. 

 Behind (or north) the Himalaya rise in steep confused 

 masses. Below, the hill on which I stood, and the ranges 

 as far as the eye can reach east and west, throw spurs on 

 to the plains of India. These are very thickly wooded, 

 and enclose broad, dead-flat, hot and damp valleys, 



