Himalayan genera which frequent the bamboo jungle at 9,000 to 12,000 feet, as Ixulus, Minla, Proparus, Trochalopteron, Suthora, etc., with European genera such as Certhia, Sitta, Parus Nipalensis, P. Æmodius, P. dichrous and other tits. Quietly riding along the road I see a small party of that curious bird, Heteromorpha unicolor, and a pair of the rare and delicate Suthora fulvifrons are creeping amongst the bamboos in company with the extraordinary scimitar-billed Xiphirhynchus snperciliaris; the two first with bills of remarkable shortness, and the latter with the longest bill of any Passerine bird found in India, though all three frequent the same sort of ground and seem to live on the same food. After ascending to 11,000 feet we come on the first stunted silver firs, Abies Webbiana, the only conifer which is seen on this ridge. A short descent of 500 feet then brings us to a saddle where a small patch of ground is covered with a curious and to me unknown dwarf Roscœa, whose roots I hope to introduce into English gardens. Another dwarf arum with huge flowers is scattered among the herbage and will, I hope, accompany the Roscœa, together with a large-flowered Fritillary and a remarkable Trillium, the only representa¬ tive of its genus in the Himalaya. A stiff climb up to Sandakphu lands us on a charming fir-clad knoll, from which on the Sikkim side you look down, when the mist allows you, on a great valley filled above with virgin forest of firs, and gradually descending into the same kind of vegetation through which we have been ascending. On the Nepal side a broken country of forest-clad hills, with their lower spurs cleared by cultivation, is unknown to European travellers; beyond there is, when clear, a grand view of the finest and highest range of mountains in the world, extending from distant Everest in the north-west, Kanchenjunga right in front of us, and far away to the north and north-east by the many snowy peaks of Donkia and Kanchenjhau, gradually lowering down to the here comparatively trifling elevation of 17,000 feet in the eastern range of Cho-la. But for this we must wait for one of those rare mornings which allow this unique view to be seen in all its glory. As I saw it on a frosty night by the light of the full moon in January, 1881, I do not think there can be any view to surpass it. And though on this occasion we only got a partial view above the sea of clouds which invariably accumulate during the night in the hot valleys of Sikkim, yet the sight was alone well worth a journey of double the distance, and must be left to those more skilled in word-painting than myself to describe.
The coolies drop in by degrees, tired with their long march, but only one seemed the worse for it, and he, a half-clad, half-starved Nepalese boy, is soon recovered by a warm night's rest, and a dose of that invaluable medicine, Chlorodine. The night as usual is wet but not cold, and the wind which blows softly from the north-west in the morning has nothing sharp or biting in it.
Allowing our men a day's halt, I ride on along the ridge to the next mountain-top on this range, Sabargam, about the same elevation as Sandakphu, and eight or nine miles distant from it. The road lies alter¬ nately oyer open glades of pasture land covered with Potentillas and other sub-Alpine plants, a grazing ground for small flocks of horned Nepalese sheep, whose wild shepherds hut themselves in temporary sheds of
