nothing to detain us on the road except an occasional shot at a wood partridge or a pigeon, we made good way, and passed our previous camp long before breakfast. The coolies also, having exhausted their food, and knowing that there was nothing to eat nearer than Laba, inarched splendidly, and when we stopped to breakfast in the fine open oak forest of Punkasari they were nearly all up. Having made a splendid breakfast on a box of biscuits and a tin of delicious cooked tongue, we went on like giants refreshed, and, walking steadily, reached Laba at half-past three; the last hour it rained in torrents, and the track was like a wet ditch full of leaves and mud, which would soon have destroyed the soles of the feet of any but these Himalayan mountaineers. After I had halted for an hour to drink tea and change my clothes in the hut at Laba, the coolies, who had come up, said that they could go on to Rississum, and we got there at dark without anyone falling out. This march of about twenty-one miles, of which fifteen was very bad travelling, does not seem much on paper, but it took us eleven and the coolies twelve hours of steady going with only two or three halts. I should advise anyone following our steps to camp the first night on Punkasari, which would divide the distance very fairly, and allow time to get into camp on the Rishi-la without fatigue.
Next day we went on to Kalimpong. I caught the rare female of Lethe bhairava in the Dumsong forest, and Prestage shot one of the red and black hornbills which are not uncommon in this forest. But the road to Kalimpong is not a good one for collecting at that time of year. I noticed that the Tenas hecabe, which were very abundant, were much smaller and less strongly marked than those taken in the Tista valley, 4,000 feet lower. On August 21st we left Kalimpong at half-past six and walked down to the Tista bridge, where I left Prestage, intending to return myself to Darjeeling via Mongpo. The day was sunny and intensely hot in the valley. One of my ponies, who had cast two shoes, was too tender on his feet to ride, and I reserved the other for the long ascent in the afternoon. The journey of nine miles along the river-side was very trying, owing to the heat, and whenever we came to shady places we wetted our heads to cool them a little. When I left the valley of the Tista at the point where the Ryeng river comes in from the west, I soon found that landslips had made it nearly impossible. After dragging my ponies through dense bush to avoid a dangerous place, I found a landslip which could not be avoided by any detour, so I was obliged to send the syces back with them to go up a side path which leads to Gielle tea plantation far up on the hillside, and go on myself without them. In one place only a few inches of earth were left of the path, on the side of a perpendicular bank, which we crossed in fear and trembling lest it should slip under our weight, and then we got on to the debris which had rushed down from the upper valley during the great rains of June. After a mile of this we came to the river, which luckily was not so high as usual, or it would have been im¬ passable. The bridge being washed away, we had to make one, and here the pluck and handiness of my Nepalese bearer, Coolman, were well brought out. The longest bamboos we could find were only just long enough to span the torrent, and sagged down so much in the middle that the water rushed over them. Coolman with some risk managed to drag
