160 TONGLO. Chap. VI. 



seen the pine-apple plant, but I never met with good 

 fruit on it. 



A singular and almost total absence of the light, and of 

 the direct rays of the sun in the ripening season, is the 

 cause of this dearth of fruit. Both the farmer and 

 orchard gardener in England know full well the value of a 

 bright sky as well as of a warm autumnal atmosphere. 

 Without this corn does not ripen, and fruit-trees are 

 blighted. The winter of the plains of India being more 

 analogous in its distribution of moisture and heat to a 

 European summer, such fruits as the peach, vine, and even 

 plum, fig, strawberry, &c., may be brought to bear well 

 in March, April, and May, if they are only carefully 

 tended through the previous hot and damp season, which 

 is, in respect to the functions of flowering and fruiting, 

 their winter. 



Hence it appears that, though some English fruits will 

 turn the winter solstice of Bengal (November to May) into 

 summer, and then flower and fruit, neither these nor others 

 will thrive in the summer of 7000 feet on the Sikkhn 

 Himalaya, (though its temperature so nearly approaches 

 that of England,) on account of its rain and fogs. Further, 

 they are often exposed to a winter's cold equal to the 

 average of that of London, the snow lying for a week on 

 the ground, and the thermometer descending to 25°. It is 

 true that in no case is the extreme of cold so great here as 

 in England, but it is sufficient to check vegetation, and to 

 prevent fruit-trees from flowering till they are fruiting in 

 the plains. There is in this respect a great difference 

 between the climate of the central and eastern and western 

 Himalaya, at equal elevations. In the western (Kumaon, 

 &c.) the winters are colder than in Sikkim — the summers 

 warmer and less humid. The rainy season is shorter, and 



