KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



219 



on passing from off' the snow to the dark earth 

 and rock, was so bewildering, that I had great 

 difficulty in picking my way. Suddenly, we 

 came on a flat, with a small tarn ; whose waters 

 gleamed illusively in the pale moonlight. The 

 opposite flanks of the valley were so well reflected 

 on its gloomy surface, that we were at once 

 brought to a stand-still on its banks. It looked 

 like a chasm, and whether to jump across it, or 

 go down it, or go along it, was the question; so 

 deceptive was the spectral landscape. Its true 

 nature was, however, soon discovered, and we 

 proceeded round it descending. Of course there 

 was no path, and after some perplexity amongst 

 rocks and ravines, we reached the upper limit of 

 wood, and halted by some bleached juniper-trees, 

 which were soon converted into blazing fires. 



I wandered away from my party to listen for 

 the voices of the men who had lingered behind, 

 about whom I was still more anxious, from the 

 very great difficulty they would encounter if, as 

 we did, they should get off the path. The moon 

 was shining clearly in the black Heavens; and 

 its bright light, with the pale glare of the sur- 

 rounding snow, obscured the milky way, and all 

 the smaller stars ; whilst the planets appeared to 

 glow with broader orbs than elsewhere, and the 

 great stars flashed steadily and periodically. Deep 

 black chasms seemed to yawn below, and cliffs 

 rose on all sides, except down the valley, where 

 looking across the Yalloong river, a steep range of 

 mountains rose, seamed with torrents that were 

 just visible, like threads of silver coursing down 

 broad landslips. 



It was a dead calm, and nothing broke the 

 awful silence but the low hoarse murmur of many 

 torrents, whose mingled voices rose and fell, as if 

 with the pulsations of the atmosphere ; the undu- 

 lations of which appeared thus to be marked by 

 the ear alone. Sometimes it was the faintest 

 possible murmur, and then it rose swelling and 

 filling the air with sound ; the effect was that of 

 being raised from the earth's surface, and again 

 lowered to it ; or that of waters advancing and 

 retiring. 



In such scenes, and with such accompaniments, 

 the mind wanders from the real to the ideal, the 

 larger and brighter lamps of Heaven lead us to 

 imagine that we have risen from ■ the surface of 

 our globe, and are floating through the regions of 

 space, and the ceaseless murmur of the waters is 

 the Music of the Spheres. 



We will now turn to a graphic sketch of 



THE LOWER HIMALAYAS. 



The sub-tropical scenery of the lower and outer 

 Sikkim Himalaya, though on a much more 

 gigantic scale, is not comparable in beauty and 

 luxuriance with the really tropical vegetation 

 induced by the hot, damp, and insular climate of 

 these perennially humid mountains. At the 

 Himalaya, forests of gigantic trees, many of them 

 deciduous, appear from a distance as masses of 

 dark grey foliage, clothing mountains 10,000 feet 

 high. Here the individual trees are smaller, 

 more varied in kind, of a brilliant green, and 

 contrast with grey limestone and red sandstone 

 rocks and silvery cataracts. 



Palms are more numerous here ; the cultivated 

 Areca (betel-nut) especially, raising its graceful 



stem and feathery crown, " like an arrow shot 

 down from Heaven," in luxuriance and beauty 

 above the verdant slopes. This difference is at 

 once expressed to the Indian botanist by defining 

 the Khasia flora as of Malayan character; by 

 which is meant the prevalence of brilliant glossy- 

 leaved evergreen tribes of trees (as Euphorbiacece 

 and Urticece), especially figs, which abound in the 

 hot gulleys, where the property of their roots, 

 which inoculate and form natural grafts, is taken 

 advantage of in bridging streams, and in con- 

 structing what are called living bridges, of the 

 most picturesque forms. Combretacece, oaks, 

 oranges, Garcinia (gamboge), Diospyros, figs, 

 Jacks, plantains, and Pandanus, are more frequent 

 here, together with pinnated leaved Leguminosce, 

 Meliacece, vines and peppers, and above all palms, 

 both climbing ones with pinnated shining leaves 

 (as Calamus and Plectocomid), and erect ones 

 with similar leaves (as cultivated cocoa-nut, Areca 

 and Arenga), and the broader- leaved wild betel- 

 nut and beautiful Caryota, or wine-palm, whose 

 immense decompound leaves are twelve feet long. 

 Laurels and wild nutmegs, with Henslowia, Itea, 

 &c, were frequent in the forest, with the usual 

 prevalence of parasites, misseltoe, epiphytical 

 Orchideai, JEschynantJms, ferns, mosses, and 

 Lycopodia. 



We have also an interesting description of 



THE FLORA OF THE HIMALAYAS. 



Khododendrons occupy the most prominent place, 

 clothing the mountain slopes with a deep green 

 mantle glowing with bells of brilliant colors ; of 

 the eight or ten species growing here, every bush 

 was loaded with as great a profusion of blossoms 

 as are their northern congeners in our English 

 gardens. Primroses ai*e next, both in beauty and 

 abundance; and they are accompanied by yellow 

 cowslips, three feet high, purple polyanthus, and 

 pink large-flowered dwarf kinds nestling in the 

 rocks, and an exquisitely-beautiful blue miniature 

 species, whose blossoms sparkle like sapphires on 

 the turf. Gentians begin to unfold their deep 

 azure bells, aconites to rear their tall blue spikes, 

 and fritillaries and meconopsis burst into flower. 

 On the black rocks the gigantic rhubarb forms 

 pale pyramidal towers a yard high, of inflated 

 reflexed bracts that conceal the flowers, and, over- 

 lapping one another like tiles, protect them from 

 the wind and rain ; a whorl of broad green leaves 

 edged with red spreads on the ground at the 

 base of the plant, contrasting in color with the 

 transparent bracts, which are yellow, margined 

 with pink. This is the handsomest herbaceous 

 plant in Sikkim: it is called "Tchuka," and the 

 acid stems are eaten both raw and boiled; they 

 are hollow, and full of pure water. The root 

 resembles that of the medicinal rhubarb, but it is 

 spongy and inert ; it attains a length of four feet, 

 and grows as thick as the arm. The dried leaves 

 afford a substitute for tobacco ; a smaller kind of 

 rhubarb is, however, more commonly used in 

 Thibet for this purpose ; it is called " Chula." 

 The elevation being 12,080 feet, I was above the 

 level of trees, and the ground was covered with 

 many kinds of small flowered honeysuckles, ber- 

 berry, and white rose. 



Our next selection shall be from that part 

 of the work which treats upon the 



