CHAPTER V
TOUR IN INDIA, 1876
In 1873 my friend Macdonald died suddenly at Darjeeling, and left a young widow, who returned to England, Since I left Darjeeling in 1870, he had opened up, on land acquired from a native at Choongtong, near Darjeeling, a tea plantation, for which I found half the capital, and which he managed with the assistance of a young German born at Darjeeling, who had a quarter share in the concern, I felt bound to take over from Mrs. Macdonald her interest in this plantation, and finding that the management was very inefficient, I offered a quarter share to Mr. A.D. Smithe, a young civil engineer who had gone out the year previously. It became necessary for me to go out myself and put him in charge,
I arrived at Darjeeling in March, 1876, and found things very unsatis¬ factory at the plantation, as the native labourers would not work for the German and the accounts were in a very confused state. I had to take charge myself until Smithe was installed, and I then left him to feel his way. Before returning home I made a short journey in the western part of Sikkim which I had not previously visited.
On this excursion I was the only white man, but I took my old Sirdar Guruk with seven coolies, and a Lepcha shikari to shoot and skin birds. I also took a plant collector who had been employed at the cinchona plantation, a Nepalese syce for my pony and a Madras servant as cook.
I started on March 22nd, and on the way down to the Rangit river stopped for a short time at my old quarters at Ging, where I had lived with poor Macdonald six years before. The tea garden was not looking so well, but in the aviary were some splendid Impeyan pheasants and a Tragopan showing its magnificent wattles, which only develop their full colour in spring.
On getting down to the old cane bridge I found it much dilapidated, I camped there for the night, as the temperature at this season is pleasant in the valley, and there are no pipsas, mosquitoes, or other hot-weather plagues; but the dried up vegetation and the absence of the swarms of butterflies which are so conspicuous here in the rains left no inducement to stay. Early next morning I went down the valley to collect. I found Arundinaria bambusifolia, a very handsome terrestrial orchid, growing in wet places, and Ærides odoratum, very dry and shrivelled, on the Sal trees, but the only other orchids in flower were a Spiranthes and a sweet-scented Eria. I saw a few of the large hornbills and shot one of the long-tailed green pigeons, Sphenurus apicauda, and returned about ten to breakfast with a missionary whom I found staying there.
After breakfast I rode up through the Sal forest to the open slopes above, where a colony of Nepalese immigrants had settled. They had cleared all the forest between 2,000 and 5,000 feet which was not too steep to cultivate. They were working some small and not very productive copper mines, and were much more energetic cultivators than the Lepchas.
On the road I met coolies on their way to Darjeeling loaded with very
70
