black and white kind, Dichoceros bicornis, and of the smaller species in which the male is black and the female chocolate, were feeding on the fruit of immense fig trees in company with several kinds of pigeons, barbets, and many other birds. In the waste land which had been cultivated, and which in Sikkim is always covered with wormwood and bracken, birds were not so abundant; and all the gentle slopes from about 3,000 to 5,000 feet were of this character or were cultivated by Nepalese settlers.
We met parties of Lamas travelling to and from the various monasteries in the Little Rangit valley, and always found them civil and well disposed; they offered us a grateful drink of Marwa beer, with which they were always well provided. On the 20th December we crossed the Tista by a long cane bridge, and sent the pony back, as the paths were becoming too rough and steep to ride much.
On the east of the Tista we passed through many small Lepcha clear¬ ings, and, crossing the Ryott river low down near its junction with the Tista, had a steep climb up the opposite side. We found a good many orchids in this part of the country, as they have not been carried off to decorate the gardens as in many places near Darjeeling. Dendrobium, Cœlogyne and Vanda Cathcarti, with some beautiful leaved Anæctochilus, were the most ornamental; and there were also some fine Aroids in flower and fiuit in the forest.
On December 22nd we camped at a place called Maling, which com¬ manded a magnificent view up the Bah valley towards Kanchenjunga, whose snowy peaks here seen from a comparatively short distance, look far higher than they do from Darjeeling. The Bah valley, which joins the Tista from the north-west opposite Singtam , is one of the least-known valleys in Sikkim. It had then never been visited by any European, as there seemed to be some strong objection among the Lepchas to allow anyone to visit the Talung Goompa, which is some way up, and where the treasures of the Sikkim Rajah were kept in safety. Lieutenant Harman tried to go there, but the path passes along very steep cliffs and he was stopped by stones being rolled down from above.*
In this valley Hooker heard of the existence of wild men, Himalayan Journals, chap. 5, and I was very desirous of penetrating the valley so as to enquire further about them, but every sort of difficulty was placed in our way on this as on my previous visit. At Singtam we heard that there was too much snow in the Lachen and Lachung valleys to get there without much difficulty, but I believe that we might have done it if time had allowed. So far we had seen hardly any birds except Accentor rubeculoides and Emberiza pusilla, which I had found on their breeding grounds in those valleys ten years before. I suppose they do not migrate very far towards the plains.
Round Singtam the soil is very fertile and the clearings in the forest extend up to 6,000 feet, producing large crops of millet, followed by wheat, which I had not noticed in the other valleys. The sky had been clear for some days; the clouds which come up from the south apparently do not extend farther up the Tista valley, which here makes a sharp bend.
1 Since then it has been visited by Mr. Claude White; see his Sikkim and Bhutan.
