We found tracks of another that day, and I shot a wild pig through the head, as it rushed past. The elephant nearly ran away, having, like many elephants, a horror of wild pigs, though he was perfectly staunch with tigers and had not moved an inch when I had my shot the day before.
After this we rode into Jelpigori, where we found Colonel Haughton, the Commissioner, a fine old soldier who had been through the Afghan, Bhutan and Khasia campaigns, and had served in Burmah and as Governor of the Andaman Islands. He was living in a large house built entirely of timber and bamboo, and we passed a very pleasant evening with him.
The next day, Bridgeman, Grenfell and I went to a place called Domohni, and camped in a grove of mangoes and areca palms. I added a few birds to my collection every day, though it was fearfully hot, and we began to feel the effects of the climate. Next morning Barnard, having got an extension of leave, arrived, and we went on to Ramshaihat, which was said to be a very good place for rhinoceros; it was a nasty malarious- looking spot, and a large held of semi-wild buffaloes made it both noisy and odoriferous.
Next day the others went out two hours before daylight, hoping to catch the rhinoceros feeding in the open, but I did not feel fit, and Bridgeman came in very seedy with fever before noon.
Barnard wounded a rhinoceros in the hind leg, and followed it for a long way on his elephant, firing away all his cartridges without bagging the beast.
It was now over 100° in the tent, and as Bridgeman was rather bad, I sent to Jelpigori for a palki to carry him in to the doctor as soon as possible, leaving Grenfell and Barnard in camp, where they shot several rhinoceros in the next few days.
As soon as Bridgeman was well enough to move we returned to Kursiong in the hills, and stayed there and at Darjeeling until the end of May, when he was sufficiently recovered to leave for England. Grenfell also had an attack of fever, no doubt caught in the Terai, but I escaped with a comparatively mild one.
The rainy season now set in for good. For the next two months Darjeel¬ ing was almost constantly in a cloud, and the air so damp that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping the collection of bird skins, which I was rapidly accumulating, in fair condition. My bird-stuffer became ill and went back to Calcutta, but I found a Lepcha, a native of Sikkim, who was quite a good collector, and whom I taught to make up bird skins very fairly well. As a rule the morning was clear for about an hour after day¬ light, when a drizzle set in which gradually turned to rain, continuing all day and night and becoming sometimes very heavy. For seven weeks there was not a single day without rain, and I did not once get a real view of Kanchenjunga, the highest mountain in the world except Mt. Everest, which, like Everest, is visible from near Darjeeling when the weather is clear.
I began to make a collection of butterflies and moths, which are there in greater abundance and variety than perhaps in any other place in the world. Most of them are caught by Lepchas who reside in the warmer valleys beyond Darjeeling, and who have acquired an ability in collecting
