ignorant of the road, but had brought a guide, whose appearance,
however, was against him, and who turned out to be sent as a spy on
us both.

Instead of crossing the Teesta here, we kept on for two days up its
west bank, to a cane bridge at Lingo, where the bed of the river is
still only 2000 feet above the sea, though 45 miles distant from the
plains, and flowing in a valley bounded by mountains 12,000 to 16,000
feet high. The heat was oppressive, from the closeness of the
atmosphere, the great power of the sun, now high at noon-day, and the
reflection from the rocks. Leeches began to swarm as the damp
increased, and stinging flies of various kinds. My clothes were
drenched with perspiration during five hours of every day, and the
crystallising salt irritated the skin. On sitting down to rest, I was
overcome with languor and sleep, and, but for the copious supply of
fresh water everywhere, travelling would have been intolerable.
The Coolies were all but naked, and were constantly plunging into the
pools of the rivers; for, though filthy in their persons, they revel
in cold water in summer. They are powerful swimmers, and will stem a
very strong current, striking out with each arm alternately. It is an
animated sight when twenty or thirty of these swarthy children of
nature are disporting their muscular figures in the water, diving
after large fish, and sometimes catching them by tickling them under
the stones.

Of plants I found few not common at similar elevations below
Dorjiling, except another kind of Tree-fern,* [_Alsophila spinulosa,_
the "Pugjik" of the Lepchas, who eat the soft watery pith: it is
abundant in East Bengal and the Peninsula of India. The other Sikkim
Tree-fern, _A. gigantea,_ is far more common from the level of the