120 DORJILING. Chap. IV. 



community, than at Dorjiling. It is incredible what a 

 few weeks of that mountain air does for the India-born 

 children of European parents : they are taken there sickly, 

 pallid or yellow, soft and flabby, to become transformed 

 into models of rude health and activity. 



There are, however, disorders to which the climate (in 

 common with all damp ones) is not at all suited ; such are 

 especially dysentery, bowel complaints, and liver com- 

 plaints of long standing ; which are not benefited by a 

 residence on these hills, though how much worse they 

 might have become in the plains is not shown. I cannot 

 hear that the climate aggravates, but it certainly does not 

 remove them. Whoever is suffering from the debilitating 

 effects of any of the multifarious acute maladies of the 

 plains, finds instant relief, and acquires a stock of health 

 that enables him to resist fresh attacks, under circumstances 

 similar to those which before engendered them. 



Natives of the low country, and especially Bengalees, are 

 far from enjoying the climate as Europeans do, being liable 

 to sharp attacks of fever and ague, from which the poorly 

 clad natives are not exempt. It is, however, difficult to 

 estimate the effects of exposure upon the Bengalees, who 

 sleep on the bare and often damp ground, and adhere, 

 with characteristic prejudice, to the attire of a torrid 

 climate, and to a vegetable diet, under skies to which these 

 are least of all adapted. 



It must not be supposed that Europeans who have 

 resided in the plains can, on their first arrival, expose 

 themselves with impunity to the cold of these elevations ; 

 this was shown in the winter of 1848 and 1849, when 

 troops brought up to Dorjiling were cantoned in newly- 

 built dwellings, on a high exposed ridge 8000 feet above 

 the sea, and lay, insufficiently protected, on a floor of 



