a short march of about nine or ten miles. After crossing the summit of Khumpong we descended about 1,000 feet to a small clearing in the forest called Laba, where a Nepalese had built a house and started a shop. After making some enquiries about the road, we went on three miles to a place where the Forest Department had erected a small wooden house in the heavy jungle. There was a chokidar in charge who admitted us, as in the rainy season, when the ground is swarming with leeches and a dry spot cannot be found whereon to pitch a tent, any sort of roof is better than none. We soon spread our beds and made ourselves comfortable. A sheep brought on from Rississum was killed and divided amongst the coolies and ourselves, and orders were given to be ready to start at day¬ break. The view from Pashiteng would be very fine if the forest were not so dense, as it lies just at the top of a very steep descent into the valley of the Dikchu and overlooks the Western Dooars which are close below, and the old Bhutia fort of Dalimkote which was stormed by our troops during the war, and where several officers and men were killed by the explosion of a powder barrel. If a really direct and easy road is wanted from Calcutta to Tibet, it must be made somewhere near here, for, as we found in the next two days, a track exists which at very small cost might be made into an excellent pony road from Laba or Pashiteng to the top of the Rishi-la. The night was clear and the morning fine, so we got away by twenty minutes past six, taking five days’ supplies for the coolies, who with our three syces, two servants, three shikaris and our¬ selves made up a party of twenty-one. The track up the steep hill above Pashiteng lay through a dense forest and was so much overgrown with herbage and blocked by fallen trees that the first i ,000 feet took us an hour to ascend. We then got on to the top of the ridge, which was covered with dense bamboo, and plodded for two or three miles along a deep muddy track until we got to the place where the road from Laba came in on the left. As we went along, Prestage’s dog occasionally winded a small covey of wood partridges, Arboricola rufigularis, which seemed very abundant in this district from 6,000 to 9,000 feet. They run among the dense bamboo, and when flushed either fly up into a tree or go off with a heavy whirring flight. Five or six were shot on the way up to Rishi-la but they are not very good either for sport or for eating, though with the red monal or tragopan, Ceriornis satyra, which is both rarer and shyer, they are the only game birds in these forests. Kalij are only found lower down, and neither the blood pheasant nor the Impeyan descend into these dense damp sunless forests. We found the track very much overgrown with grass and bushes, and had to keep our kukries in constant use in cutting the bamboo which had fallen across it. We took our ponies to see if the path was practicable for them, but I do not think either of us rode a mile during the whole day. I never realised so forcibly how all-important it is to the naturalist to have a good clean open path in order to enable him to see and collect either plants, birds or insects. When the hands and eyes are constantly occupied in clearing away obstructions, and there is no bare ground or open space in which insects can settle or birds can be watched, you get little or nothing. Showy plants also were apparently far less numerous in this forest than on the
