DARJEELING.

teeth. Rice is their staple food. Their language is a Thebetan dialect, and their religion a corrupt Buddhism.

Here, too, in large numbers, were the Bhooteas, tall and robust, sturdy, flat-faced people, weather-beaten, with broad mouths and flat noses; their complexion whitish yellow, but encrusted with dirt, and tar, and smoke. They seldom wash. They are dressed in loose blankets girt about the waist with a leather belt, in which they place their brass pipes, their long knives, chopsticks, tinder-box, tobacco-pouch and tweezers, with which they pluck away all trace of beard. They wear stout woven boots-boot and stocking in one. The women have their faces tarred, and their hair is plaited in two tails, the neck loaded with strings of coral and amber, large heavy, round earrings, dragging down the lobe of the ear. They are always spinning. The Bhooteas are Buddhists, and believe in the efficacy of praying-machines. When crossing mountains they hang little scraps of rag on the bushes, as a prayer for safety, and place grains of rice along the hillside to propitiate evil spirits. They bury their dead on the mountains, raising cairns over them.

Here, again, one might see the light and agile Nepalese, with intelligent and pleasing countenances, active and enduring, and brave to a degree, as the Nepal war (1816) witnesses. Their secluded valleys are rich in forest and minerals, and on the frontier indigo is largely grown. Their dogs are yellow-fanged, wolf-like, fierce, surly creatures, but invaluable watchdogs. Nepal proper is a small valley twelve miles by nine at the foot of this part of the Himâlayan range, but the country extends west from Sikkim to Kumaon. The ruling race are called Ghûrkas. Here Buddhism and Vaishnavism are found side by side. The temples are of wood, and remind one of those of Japan. The temple of Mahadeva at Patan presents both styles of architecture, the Hindu and the Thibetan or Turanian side by side. The capital of Nepal is Khatmandu, and contains a beautiful temple in the Chinese style. The view of the Himalayas to the north-east is very grand. The ragged Lama mendicant is also to be met with, and Sherbas and Thibetan beggars, jovial, but easily excited. Intermingled with these native mountain tribes were stolid Chinamen, proud Mahommedans, and graceful Hindus. In the midst of the bustle and bartering, the missionary had his open room, or shed, into which the people came to hear hymn, or prayer, or Scripture. In the Bhootea village there is a small, dirty Buddhist temple called Bhootea Bustee. The Lamas, or priests, are also of a low type, unctuous, sly, insolent. They sell praying-machines (Mani), and use them in their worship, continually turning them round. Indeed, you enter the temple between two huge cylinders, like pillars, two feet in diameter and six feet high, which are gigantic praying machines, turned by means of a winch. Here we met many Thibetans returning to their country with heavy burdens.

Rising one morning while it was yet dark and starlight, we mounted our ponies, and, with guides, started for the ascent of the SINCHAL MOUNTAIN (eight thousand three hundred feet), six miles from Darjeeling. through the military sanatorium to "the Saddle," or Johr "the Saddle," or Johr Bungalow, we

Riding

began the ascent up a steep winding track through the jungle, and after an hour's climb reached the Chimneys-the ruins of the first military stationperched upon a ridge, or shoulder of Sinchal, where Kinchinjunga and its neighbour peaks burst on our view, kindled with the rays of the rising sun. The air was perfectly clear, and the sky cloudless. Here we dismounted, and

DARJEELING.

scrambled through brushwood and snow to the summit, which is specially celebrated, because of the glorious prospect it commands-the sweep of the Himalayan range, including Everest itself, the presiding monarch of them all, the highest mountain in the world. There he rose to our view, of sugarloaf shape, far off, but clear cut against the sky. The entire range "Pelion on Ossa piled," was now before us as far as the eye could reach in a clear atmosphere and a cloudless sky. It was like looking from a Pisgah across the valleys and over moun

tains to a new and loftier country. Here one is overwhelmed with the majesty of Nature and the power of the Almighty. The deep blue sky, the pure white snows, the clear-cut precipices, the dark, shady ravines, the dense primeval forests, all impress the spectator with the presence of God. Having filled the eye and mind with the sublimity of a prospect never to be forgotten during two hours spent on that green, but now frostwhitened mountain, we reluctantly descended to the shoulder where our ponies were, and returned thankful and exultant that we had been so favoured in the weather; for these grandeurs are often enveloped in mist or cloud for days together. The annual average rainfall at Darjeeling is nine feet eight inches-one hundred and sixteen inches-June to September being the wettest months.

The descent from Darjeeling to the Ranjit river, which separates it from the Himalayan range, is six thousand feet in eleven miles, and the river is crossed by one of those cane bridges which are peculiar to this part of the world. The main chains supporting the bridge are branches of trees, and rattan canes; the sides are of split canes, hanging from each main chain, two feet apart. Into these loops the foot-path is laid, composed of three bamboos, the thickness of a man's arm, laid side by side, the section of the

bridge resembling the letter V, in the angle or base of which the traveller finds footing. The piers of these bridges are generally two convenient trees through whose branches the main chains are passed and pegged into the ground beyond. Only one traveller can pass over at a time, and the spring

and oscillation are considerable, but strong bamboos are placed underneath and connected with the main chains by split rattan ropes to prevent the bridge from collapsing with the weight.

At the lower edge of the great forest which clothes the Sinchal lies a botanical garden, lonely and lovely, the Rungaroon Garden, where we