Chota hazri and a wash at Siliguri the next morning sent us on our way rejoicing, in the little toy-train of the Darjeeling and Himalayan Railway. It is in reality a steam tramway, and runs along by the side of the old cart hillroad, on a gauge only two feet in width. The first class compartments are divided by a trellis-work, and the second and third are open cars. They run along smoothly and swiftly, raised but a few inches off the ground.
This railway is considered a great, by some "the greatest," engineering feat, mounting as it does 7000 feet into the heart of the Himalayas, with a gradient as steep as one in twenty, and radii of one to sixteen. It was undertaken chiefly for the humane purpose of giving work to the natives during the great Bengal famine of 1874. Two years saw its completion, at the moderate cost of 3000l. a mile.
Creeping cautiously across the Mahanuddi River, on the crankiest of wooden bridges, we ran rapidly over the plain for nine miles, and then entered an avenue in the forest.
The ascent began through a sâl forest, densely overgrown with jungle, and then proceeded to a forest more varied with birch, maple, oak, and wild mango. The trunks of these huge trees were clothed with epiphytes, a creeper of large green leaves, of much the same shape as our "lords and ladies." It was curious to note how the higher we ascended the hardier became the species of trees. Thus in one day we were to pass through varying vegetation and varying climes; from the oppressive heat of the plain to the moist rarified atmosphere of the mountain altitudes; from the tropical wealth of vegetation to the hardier kinds of trees and shrubs. Strangely enough, in these latter you do not see the pine, spruce fir, or larch, for the hardiest species found in the Himalayan peaks are magnolia, laurel, holly, olive, maple, and oak.
On and on through this forest-clad side of the mountain we travelled, fascinated by the dense tangle of jungle on either hand. These impenetrable depths we knew were the lair of the leopard and cheetah. We longed to see the glare of green eyes in the undergrowth, and to hear the crash of an elephant's approach. But a mild pleasure lay in the monkeys, who crept out in great numbers, and swung on the branches of the trees overhead, jabbering and mocking us as we passed. The gullies were filled with wild banana-trees, yielding a bitter, acrid fruit.
All this time we were rising rapidly above the vast plain of Bengal, that lay like a shining sheet at our feet, melting away into golden mist. We were now coming to the first of the great engineering wonders of this line of wonders—the circle. Passing under a bridge, we described a distinct circle round the circumference of a small hill, and, gradually ascending round the further curve, were immediately afterwards passing over the same identical bridge.
Here, as with all the Himalayan range, the Sikkim Hills run in tiers, one above the other, rising in the first instance sheer out of the plain. There opened before us one of those gorgeous amphitheatres of hills, seen so often during the ascent. You come upon an immeasurable hollow, and lying literally in amphitheatrical tiers beneath are ranges of mountains within the mountains, dwindling so far away, down, down, into hills, and the hills again into mere knolls, by comparison with the gigantic monsters of the background.
Frequently looking down into this crater, filled with hilltops, we saw perched up on one a planter's bungalow and factory, with the tea-garden terracing up and down the side of the mountain—the regular lines of the stunted bushes, with the space of earth between.
Once for many miles we swept round the mighty circle of the amphitheatre, clinging halfway up on the sides of the depthless gorge; then passing from one mountain to another, gradually rising, we described a double curve, one line of rails above the other, and passing away behind the mountains, ascended others higher and farther upwards.