EAINFALL AND COLLECTORS 337 
and excellent ; the thermometer is hardly ever up to 80°, 
or falls below 68°, at midsummer. 
Darjeeling cannot compare with Churra — 500 inches and 
more (i.e. upv/ards of 40 feet) of rain fell last year at Churra. 
I do not doubt that it is the rainiest climate in the world. 
Nimklow : July 11, 1850. 
Here Tom and I have arrived at our furthest North from 
Churra, all beyond this being very unhealthy. It is very 
tantalising to be stuck up here, literally within one day's 
horse ride of Jenkins,^ whose dwelling at Gowhatty we can 
almost see ; but the intervening Terai is deadly at this season. 
I have written to ask if he can send me an Assam native of 
tolerable cunning who will get me the Palms and Bamboos 
from the Terai. I have already thirteen species of Bamboo 
from Churra and ten from Sikkim : I believe those of the 
two countries to be perfectly different. Unfortunately 
they never flower, and I am determined with Tom's help, 
and by obtaining gigantic specimens, to describe them by 
habit, leaf, etc. 
August 23, 1850. 
What with Jenkins' and Simon's collectors here, twenty 
or thirty of Falconer's, Lobb's,^ my friends Eaban and Cave 
and Inglis' friends, the roads here are becoming stripped 
like the Penang jungles, and I assure you for miles it some- 
times looks as if a gale had strewed the road with rotten 
branches and Orchideae. Falconer's men sent down 1000 
baskets the other day, and assuming 150 at the outside as 
the number of species worth cultivating, it stands to reason 
that your stoves in England will still be stocked. The only 
chance of novelty is in the deadly jungles of Assam, Jyntea, 
and the Garrows. I am therefore not spending my money 
on Orchideae collecting but rather on Palms, Scitamineae, 
&c., which are more difficult to procure and not sought 
after by these plunderers. Oaks I will attend to, but they 
are most troublesome, as not one in a thousand is worth 
anything. 
1 Col. F. Jenkins {fl. 1833, d. before 1884) became Major-Gen. H.E.I.C.S. 
and Commissioner of Assam, the botany of which he investigated. He sent 
large collections of Assam plants to the Natural History Society of Cornwall. 
Jenkinsia Acrostichum was named after him. 
2 Thomas Lobb {fl. 1847) was a botanical collector for Veitch in India and 
Malaya. The genus Lobbia Planch, was named after him. 
