[341] Temperature in September 77° to 80°; and in November 75·7°.
The sub-tropical scenery of the lower and outer Sikkim Himalaya, though on a much more gigantic scale, is not comparable in beauty and luxuriance with the really tropical vegetation induced by the hot, damp, and insular climate of these perennially humid mountains. At the Himalaya forests of gigantic trees, many of them deciduous, appear from a distance as masses of dark gray foliage, clothing mountains 10,000 feet high: here the individual trees are smaller, more varied in kind, of a brilliant green, and contrast with gray limestone and red sandstone rocks and silvery cataracts. Palms are more numerous here;[[342]] the cultivated Areca (betel-nut) especially, raising its graceful stem and feathery crown, “like an arrow shot down from heaven,” in luxuriance and beauty above the verdant slopes. This difference is at once expressed to the Indian botanist by defining the Khasia flora as of Malayan character; by which is meant the prevalence of brilliant glossy-leaved evergreen tribes of trees (as Euphorbiaceæ and Urticeæ), especially figs, which abound in the hot gulleys, where the property of their roots, which inosculate and form natural grafts, is taken advantage of in bridging streams, and in constructing what are called living bridges, of the most picturesque forms. Combretaceæ, oaks, oranges, Garcinia (gamboge), Diospyros, figs, Jacks, plantains, and Pandanus, are more frequent here, together with pinnated leaved Leguminosæ, Meliaceæ, vines and peppers, and above all palms, both climbing ones with pinnated shining leaves (as Calamus and Plectocomia), and erect ones with similar leaves (as cultivated cocoa-nut, Areca and Arenga), and the broader-leaved wild betel-nut, and beautiful Caryota or wine-palm, whose immense decompound leaves are twelve feet long. Laurels and wild nutmegs, with Henslowia, Itea, etc., were frequent in the forest, with the usual prevalence of parasites, mistleto, epiphytical Orchideæ, Æshynanthus, ferns, mosses, and Lycopodia; and on the ground were Rubiaceæ, Scitamineæ, ferns, Acanthaceæ, beautiful balsams, and herbaceous and shrubby nettles. Bamboos[[343]] of many kinds are very abundant, and these hills further differ remarkably from those of Sikkim in the great number of species of grasses.
[342] There are upwards of twenty kinds of Palm in this district, including Chamærops, three species of Areca, two of Wallichia, Arenga, Caryota, three of Phœnix, Plectocomia, Licuala, and many species of Calamus. Besides these there are several kinds of Pandanus, and the Cycas pectinata.
[343] The natives enumerate about fourteen different kinds of bamboo, of which we found five in flower, belonging to three very distinct genera. Uspar, Uspet, Uspit, Usken, Uskong, Uktang, Usto, Silee, Namlang, Tirra, and Battooba are some of the names of Bamboos vouched for by Mr. Inglis as correctly spelt. Of other Khasia names of plants, Wild Plantains are called Kairem, and the cultivated Kakesh; the latter are considered so nourishing that they are given to newborn infants. Senteo is a flower in Khas, So a fruit, Ading a tree, and Te a leaf. Pandanus is Kashelan. Plectocomia, Usmole. Licuala, Kuslow. Caryota, Kalai-katang. Wallichia, Kalai-nili. Areca, Waisola. Various Calami are Rhimet, Uriphin, Ureek hilla, Tindrio, etc. This list will serve as a specimen; I might increase it materially, but as I have elsewhere observed, the value attached to the supposed definite application of native names to natural objects is greatly over-rated, and too much reliance on them has introduced a prodigious amount of confusion into scientific works and philological inquiries.
The ascent was at first gradual, along the sides of a sandstone spur. At 2000 feet the slope suddenly became steep and rocky, at 3000 feet tree vegetation disappeared, and we opened a magnificent prospect of the upper scarped flank of the valley of Moosmai, which we were ascending, with four or five beautiful cascades rolling over the table top of the hills, broken into silvery foam as they leapt from ledge to ledge of the horizontally stratified precipice, and throwing a veil of silver gauze over the gulf of emerald green vegetation, 2000 feet below. The views of the many cataracts of the first class that are thus precipitated over the bare table-land on which Churra stands, into the valleys on either side, surpass anything of the kind that I have elsewhere seen, though in many respects vividly recalling the scenery around Rio de Janeiro: nor do I know any spot in the world more calculated to fascinate the naturalist who, while appreciating the elements of which a landscape is composed, is also keenly alive to the beauty and grandeur of tropical scenery.
At the point where this view opens, a bleak stony region commences, bearing numberless plants of a temperate flora and of European genera, at a comparatively low elevation; features which continue to the top of the flat on which the station is built, 4000 feet above the sea.
