near Jelpigori, where the Government elephants were placed at our service. I engaged a native bird-skinner on Dr. Anderson’s advice, as I found that in the great heat it was necessary to skin birds the same day they were shot. Though one can rarely trust the determination of the sex to a native, and I always wrote my labels before the skins were made up, it saved an immense deal of time, trouble and dirty work, which I had already found very irksome in Southern India, We left Calcutta with the Viceregal party, who were leaving for Simla on the 8th of April, and got to Sahibgunge at daylight. In those days one had a ferry of thirty miles in a steam tug to Caragola, and from there went in palkis to Purneah, as no carriage could be had. The next night we drove about 100 miles to the foot of the hills at Siligori, where there was a very fair dak bungalow on the banks of the Mahanuddi. This was then the end of the carriage road to Darjeeling.
As we heard from Colonel Haughton that the hunting party would not start for a week, we rode up to Darjeeling, staying for one night at Kursiong, a lovely place at about 4,500 feet on the top of the first steep ascent from the plains. In those days the forest came close up to the little hotel at Kursiong, where I passed some pleasant days in collecting birds, which were very numerous and all quite different from those of the plains. The forest at that elevation was splendid, the trees being covered with ferns, climbing aroids, creeping plants, orchids and mosses. I have never, except in Mexico, been able to collect so great a variety of birds in one place as I did here between 4,500 and 6,000 feet, A short visit to Darjeeling gave me such a good impression of the country that I determined to spend some months there. We were glad to meet Major Barnard, the officer in command of the depot, and Lieutenant Grenfell, of the 60th Rifles, afterwards Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell, who were to be the other members of the tiger-hunting party in the Terai.
I shall say nothing about the beautiful scenery and surroundings of Darjeeling, which has to me always been the most delightful place in India. Though several books have been written about Sikkim, Hooker’s Himalayan Journals stands out far above all others. In the twenty-two years which had elapsed since Hooker was there, a good deal of clearing had been done for tea-planting, but there were few changes compared to those which have come since the railway was made.
On April 15th we rode down again to Siligori, where we found tents from Jelpigori and the elephants assembled, all ready for work. But as Dr. Brougham had not arrived, it was decided to make a short hunt up to a place called Sivoke, where the Tista river emerges from the hills, and where, in those days, rhinoceros and tigers were abundant, This place is notoriously unhealthy, as is the whole of the Terai at this season, and I believe it was here that many of our men were infected by the malaria which broke up our party later. At that time it was not known that mosquitoes were the cause of our infection. It was supposed that the malaria was produced by the action of the sun on the wet or marshy ground, and that it was to be avoided best by sleeping in a house built on piles some feet above the ground, which was the custom of the Mechis, a tribe who were at one time the only permanent residents in the Terai.
