May, 1848. SIMSIBOXG ENCAMPMENT. 163 



with very dense foliage, and deep shining green leaves, a 

 foot to eighteen inches long. Most of its flowers drop 

 nnexpanded from the tree, and diffuse a very aromatic 

 smell; they are nearly as large as the fist, the outer 

 petals purple, the inner pure white. 



Heavy rain came on at 3 p.m., obliging us to take 

 insufficient shelter under the trees, and finally to seek the 

 nearest camping-ground. For this purpose we ascended to 

 a spring, called Simsibong, at an elevation of 6000 feet. 

 The narrowness of the ridge prevented our pitching the 

 tent, small as it was ; but the Lepchas rapidly constructed 

 a house, and thatched it with bamboo and the broad leaves 

 of the wild plantain. A table was then raised in the 

 middle, of four posts and as many cross pieces of wood, 

 lashed with strips of bamboo. Across these, pieces of bamboo 

 were laid, ingeniously flattened, by selecting cylinders, 

 crimping them all round, and then slitting each down one 

 side, so that it opens into a flat slab. Similar but longer 

 and lower erections, one on each side the table, formed bed 

 or chair ; and in one hour, half a dozen men, with only 

 long knives and active hands, had provided us with a 

 tolerably water-tight furnished house. A thick flooring 

 of bamboo leaves kept the feet dry, and a screen of that 

 and other foliage all round rendered the habitation 

 tolerably warm. 



At this elevation we found great scandent trees twisting 

 around the trunks of others, and strangling them : the 

 latter gradually decay, leaving the sheath of climbers as 

 one of the most remarkable vegetable phenomena of these 

 mountains. These climbers belong to several orders, and 

 may be roughly classified in two groups. — (1.) Those whose 

 stems merely twine, and by constricting certain parts of 

 their support, induce death. — (2.) Those which form a net- 



y 2 



