From this place we returned to Dorjiling, arriving on the afternoon of the following day.
The most interesting trip to be made from Dorjiling, is that to the summit of Tonglo, a mountain on the Singalelah range, 10,079 feet high, due west of the station, and twelve miles in a straight line, but fully thirty by the path.[[50]]
[50] A full account of the botanical features noticed on this excursion (which I made in May, 1848, with Mr. Barnes) has appeared in the “London Journal of Botany,” and the “Horticultural Society’s Journal,” and I shall, therefore, recapitulate its leading incidents only.
Leaving the station by a native path, the latter plunges at once into a forest, and descends very rapidly, occasionally emerging on cleared spurs, where are fine crops of various millets, with much maize and rice. Of the latter grain as many as eight or ten varieties are cultivated, but seldom irrigated, which, owing to the dampness of the climate, is not necessary: the produce is often eighty-fold, but the grain is large, coarse, reddish, and rather gelatinous when boiled. After burning the timber, the top soil is very fertile for several seasons, abounding in humus, below which is a stratum of stiff clay, often of great thickness, produced by the disintegration of the rocks;[[51]] the clay makes excellent bricks, and often contains nearly 30 per cent. of alumina.
[51] An analysis of the soil will be found in the [Appendix.]
At about 4000 feet the great bamboo (“Pao” Lepcha) abounds; it flowers every year, which is not the case with all others of this genus, most of which flower profusely over large tracts of country, once in a great many years, and then die away; their place being supplied by seedlings, which grow with immense rapidity. This well-known fact is not due, as some suppose, to the life of the species being of such a duration, but to favourable circumstances in the season. The Pao attains a height of 40 to 60 feet, and the culms average in thickness the human thigh; it is used for large water-vessels, and its leaves form admirable thatch, in universal use for European houses at Dorjiling. Besides this, the Lepchas are acquainted with nearly a dozen kinds of bamboo; these occur at various elevations below 12,000 feet, forming, even in the pine-woods, and above their zone, in the skirts of the Rhododendron scrub, a small and sometimes almost impervious jungle. In an economical point of view they maybe classed as those which split readily, and those which do not. The young shoots of several are eaten, and the seeds of one are made into a fermented drink, and into bread in times of scarcity; but it would take many pages to describe the numerous purposes to which the various species are put.
Gordonia is their most common tree (G. Wallichii), much prized for ploughshares and other purposes requiring a hard wood: it is the “Sing-brang-kun” of the Lepchas, and ascends to 4000 feet. Oaks at this elevation occur as solitary trees, of species different from those of Dorjiling. There are three or four with a cup-shaped involucre, and three with spinous involucres enclosing an eatable sweet nut; these generally grow on a dry clayey soil.
Some low steep spurs were well cultivated, though the angle of the field was upwards of 25°; the crops, chiefly maize, were just sprouting. This plant is occasionally hermaphrodite in Sikkim, the flowers forming a large drooping panicle and ripening small grains; it is, however, a rare occurrence, and the specimens are highly valued by the people.