After riding for some miles along the ridge, we descended towards the Teesta River, and again met with the magnificent tree-ferns, palms, bamboos, and wild bananas. We passed by several flourishing tea plantations, each with its cosy, but lonely, bungalow, surrounded by a beautiful garden. By the roadway caladiums of every variegated colour brightened the prospect. But as we descended the atmosphere grew more oppressive and stifling, till when we reached the Teesta itself, which here lies at an altitude of only 700 feet above sea-level, the atmosphere was precisely that of a hothouse. The thermometer did not rise above 95°, but the heat was well-nigh unbearable. Perspiration poured from every pore. Energy oozed away with every drop, and the thought of a winter amid the snows of Tibet became positively cheering. It was a curious beginning for such an expedition as was to follow, but the Indian officer has to be prepared to undergo at a moment’s notice every degree of heat or cold, of storm and sunshine, of drought or deluge, and take everything he meets cheerily as in the day’s work.
We were now in Sikkim proper, the thin wedge of a valley which runs from the plains to the watershed of the Himalayas, and separates Nepal from Bhutan. For luxuriance and for variety of vegetation, and of animal, bird, and insect life, it must, I should say, be unequalled by any other country in the world, for it lies in the tropics, and rises from an elevation of only a few hundred feet above sea-level to a snowy range, culminating in a peak 28,178 feet in height.
The valley bottom was narrow, and the Teesta River, 100 yards or so broad, dashed down over great boulders and beside precipitous cliffs with immense velocity. Both the main and the side valleys were very deep, the slopes steep, and the whole packed with a dense forest of rich and graceful and variegated foliage. Tropical oaks of gigantic size, a tree with a buttressed trunk growing to a height of 200 feet, “sal,” sago-palms, bamboos, bananas, bauhinias, “took,” screw-pine, and on the ridges _Pinus excelsus_. An immense climber, with pendulous blossoms, and which bears a fruit like a melon, was very prevalent, and aristolochias, with their pitcher-like flowers, orchids, and ferns. Tropical profusion of vegetable growth was nowhere better exemplified. But almost more remarkable were the number and the variety of the butterflies. I counted seventeen different species in a couple of hundred yards, some of the most exquisitely beautiful colouring, flashing out every brilliant and metallic hue; others mimicking the foliage, and when at rest shutting their wings together, and exactly resembling the leaves of a tree. Less beautiful, but equally abundant, was the wealth of insect life. And here with a vengeance was the thorn which every rose possesses. Midges, mosquitoes, gnats, every conceivable horror and annoyance in this particular line, was present here; also beetles in myriads; some spiders, too, of enormous size; cockchafers and cockroaches, winged ants, and, in addition to all these insect pests, the countless leeches on every leaf and every blade of grass. It is indeed a paradise for a naturalist, but only for such a naturalist as has his flesh under due subjection to the spirit. And such a naturalist was the great Sir Joseph Hooker, the friend of Darwin, who first explored this country in 1848 and 1849, and who is even now living amongst us.