28B THE SECOND HIMALAYAN JOUENEY 
was swept away. Kinchin, as he was named, is first referred 
to in a letter at the end of the Nepaul expedition : 
I have brought from the Snows a most grand Bhotea 
dog, about which I must write to dear Bessy, and a droll 
puppy of a breed which I hope will live in the Plains. The 
former is a huge and savage creature, but a faithful watch ; 
he does not bite me, but has already so served three of 
my servants, chiefly at night. If you know a book called 
* Youatt on the Dog,' and can refer to it, you will find 
a splendid wood- cut of this — ' the Thibet Mastifi".' 
The results of the Nepaul expedition being completed, from 
February 27 to March 24 he was in the plains. Happily the 
Sikkim Terai was free from the malaria, so deadly elsewhere, 
and he was able to reassure his parents, who w^ould naturally 
be alarmed by the sudden death not only of his late companions, 
!Mr. Williams^ and his assistant on the Survey, who had im- 
prudently camped in a most unhealthy jungle, but of his uncle 
and almost contemporary, Gurney Turner, who had entered 
the medical service of the E.I.C. 
A reasonably good collection, as he modestly calls it, was the 
result, though in the densely wooded Terai ' the only safe way 
of botanising is by pushing through the jungle on elephants ; 
an uncomfortable method, for the quantities of ants and 
insects which drop from the foHage above, and from the risk 
of disturbing pendulous bees' and ants' nests.' Geological 
research in dense tropical forests w^as exhausting, but he made 
many notes, including traces of inversion of the strata, as at 
the foot of other great mountain ranges, such as the Alleghanies 
and the Alps. By the Mechi river, the western boundary of 
^ The follovricg is characteristic : ' If , as I fear is the case, the widow of 
Williams (of the Geological Survey) is left destitute — (she has six children) — 
there ought to be a small sum raised for her by the officers of the Geological 
Survey. I have written to Reeks about it, and requested that, if this be done, 
he would apply to you for £10 in my name ; for during the two months I spent 
with poor Williams, he woald not allow me to spend a shilling for board or 
travelling expenses. Reeks will only set down my name for £2 25., and give 
the rest under a fictitious signature ; for neither could some of my brother 
officers afford so much, nor are they called upon to give it by obligations to the 
deceased.' (To his mother, Feb. 1, 1849. Trenham Reeks, who died in 1879, 
was Registrar of the School of ]VIines, and Curator and Librarian of the Museum 
of Practical Geology.) 
