TO TONGLO 257 
and to-clay have added two boys of 8 and 14 or thereabouts ; 
one a very fine Httle fellow. Falconer has sent me up every- 
thing I asked for, including 3 Bengal collectors, regular Hay- 
makers. I dislike the Bengalees very much ; and these are 
lazy dogs, as all are. I shall astonish them to-morrow, when 
they will have to travel some 15 miles through these woods. 
• One actually objected to carry the vasculum 6 miles, whilst a 
Lepcha carries 80-100 lbs. 16 miles on a stretch, and laughs 
all day long. 
In the same month. May 19, he went further afield with his 
friend Mr. Barnes on what he considered the most interesting 
trip to be made from Darjiling. This was to Tonglo, a mountain 
10,000 feet high, in the long subsidiary range dividing Sikkim 
from Nepaul, that runs south from Kinchinjunga, the then 
loftiest known peak in the world. Tonglo fronts Darjiling 
on the west, a dozen miles away as the crow flies, thirty by 
the path. The district was full of botanical treasures, the 
extra 1000 feet ascended presenting a total change in the Mora, 
but in the valley of the Little Eungeet the glories of the scarlet 
vaccinium parasitic on the trees, of the great white rhododendron 
named later after Lady Dalhousie, and of the tall magnolia 
with shining foliage that was to bear Hodgson's name, were 
sadly dimmied by the swarms of the large tick from the bamboos 
— ' a more hateful insect I have never encountered ' — and 
the persistent leeches such as had already been met with 
on the way up. 
Unfortunately the bulkier things collected had to be left 
behind. Owing to the ceaseless torrents of rain, five of his 
fifteen men fell sick. Even the hardy Lepchas could not stand 
wet and cold together, especially on their poor fare of fern- 
tops, maize, rice, and whatever else they could get, from leaves 
of Solanum and nettles to fungi, ' which would give Klotzsch 
or Berkeley ^ the stomach-ache ' : in fact ' a vegetable must 
be very bad to be acknowledged poisonous by these people, 
who may come under Sambo's definition of the genus Homo, 
" an omnivorous tripod who [devours] all he can get." ' 
Still, what remained was ' a glorious collection,' making 
1 These were both distinguished mycologists. 
