568 Notes upon a Tour in tlie Si/c/cim Ilimalayah Mountains. [No. 6. 



flies of a large size were very abundant, but they gave us no trouble 

 beyond an occasional bite. 



As we had had only a very short march and intending to remain 

 all day on the Pass, the Lepchas commenced playing hop-step and a 

 jump ; running races, jumping distances and playing all sorts of 

 tricks, like so many good-natured school-boys ; whilst the Nepalese 

 Hindoo coolies shrunk away to sleep under the trees. 



The Lepcha is a most desirable companion in travelling, neither 

 heat nor rain nor cold, nor any thing else appears to ruffle his even 

 temper. I have travelled with them in the height of the rains 

 when for fifteen days they never had a dry stitch of clothes on their 

 backs, and yet no word of murmur was ever heard from their lips. 

 They travelled the whole of these days through drenching rain, car- 

 rying heavy burdens ; and at night often in vain endeavouring to 

 dry their clothes, their legs streaming with blood, they would without 

 a murmur, but with much laughing and joking, lie down on the wet 

 ground under a cotton covering, stretched upon two poles, and sleep 

 till the morning. 



During the night I heard the hooting of owls ; bats and shrews 

 were also heard. I procured a very handsome speckled crow with a 

 white and black tail ; small birds were very scarce. 



9t7i August, 1852. — Direction north along the crest of Singaleelah. 

 The morning was most lovely, the air pure and transparent and the 

 temperature delicious ; although this trip has been undertaken in 

 the height of the rains, we have as yet only had a few showers since 

 leaving Darjeeling. 



The same beautiful view that we had sat for hours enjoying the 

 evening before was still before us ; Chumalari towering over every 

 thing. This singular, isolated mountain was recognized this morn- 

 ing by several of my Lepchas who had been to Phari at its base. 



As we proceeded we noticed a bank of snow-white clouds twenty 

 miles in length and twelve thousand feet in height, impelled by the 

 full force of the most southwest monsoon rolling up the eastern 

 flank of the eastern snowy range, and as the clouds poured over the 

 western side upon the lower hills of Sikkim, it had the exact appear- 

 ance of an extensive cataract pouring over the mountains into the 

 deep valley of the Teesta river ; a cataract twenty miles long and 

 12,000 feet in height ; it was a glorious sight. 



