Himalayan Journals, vol 1, J. D. Hooker [13 ebook reader .txt] 📗

of the many routes between Nepal and Sikkim, which cross the Singalelah spur of Kinchinjunga at various elevations between 7000

and 15,000 feet. As usual, the track runs along ridges, wherever these are to be found, very steep, and narrow at the top, through deep humid forests of oaks and Magnolias, many laurels, both Tetranthera and Cinnamomum, one species of the latter ascending to 8,500 feet, and one of Tetranthera to 9000. Chesnut and walnut here appeared, with some leguminous trees, which however did not ascend to 6000 feet. Scarlet flowers of Vaccinium serpens, an epiphytical species, were strewed about, and the great blossoms of Rhododendron Dalhousiae and of a Magnolia (_Talaunaa Hodgsoni_) lay together on the ground. The latter forms a large tree, with very dense foliage, and deep shining green leaves, a foot to eighteen inches long. Most of its flowers drop unexpanded from the tree, and diffuse a very aromatic smell; they are nearly as large as the fist, the outer petals purple, the inner pure white.

 

Heavy rain came on at 3 p.m., obliging us to take insufficient shelter under the trees, and finally to seek the nearest camping-ground. For this purpose we ascended to a spring, called Simsibong, at an elevation of 6000 feet. The narrowness of the ridge prevented our pitching the tent, small as it was; but the Lepchas rapidly constructed a house, and thatched it with bamboo and the broad leaves of the wild plantain. A table was then raised in the middle, of four posts and as many cross pieces of wood, lashed with strips of bamboo. Across these, pieces of bamboo were laid, ingeniously flattened, by selecting cylinders, crimping them all round, and then slitting each down one side, so that it opens into a flat slab. Similar but longer and lower erections, one on each side the table, formed bed or chair; and in one hour, half a dozen men, with only long knives and active hands, had provided us with a tolerably water-tight furnished house. A thick flooring of hamboo leaves kept the feet dry, and a screen of that and other foliage all round rendered the habitation tolerably warm.

 

At this elevation we found great scandent trees twisting around the trunks of others, and strangling them: the latter gradually decay, leaving the sheath of climbers as one of the most remarkable vegetable phenomena of these mountains. These climbers belong to several orders, and may be roughly classified in two groups.—

(1.) Those whose sterns merely twine, and by constricting certain parts of their support, induce death.—(2.) Those which form a network round the trunk, by the coalescence of their lateral branches and aerial roots, etc.: these wholly envelop and often conceal the tree they enclose, whose branches appear rising far above those of its destroyer. To the first of these groups belong many natural orders, of which the most prominent are—Leguminosae, ivies, hydrangea, vines, Pothos, etc. The inosculating ones are almost all figs and Wightia: the latter is the most remarkable, and I add a cut of its grasping roots, sketched at our encampment.

 

Illustration — CLASPING ROOTS OF WIGHTIA.

 

Except for the occasional hooting of an owl, the night was profoundly still during several hours after dark—the cicadas at this season not ascending so high on the mountain. A dense mist shrouded every thing, and the rain pattered on the leaves of our hut. At midnight a tree-frog (“Simook,” Lepcha) broke the silence with his curious metallic clack, and others quickly joined the chorus, keeping up their strange music till morning. Like many Batrachians, this has a voice singularly unlike that of any other organised creature.

The cries of beasts, birds, and insects are all explicable to our senses, and we can recognise most of them as belonging to such or such an order of animal; but the voices of many frogs are like nothing else, and allied species utter totally dissimilar noises.

In some, as this, the sound is like the concussion of metals; in others, of the vibration of wires or cords; anything but the natural effects of lungs, larynx, and muscles.* [A very common Tasmanian species utters a sound that appears to ring in an underground vaulted chamber, beneath the feet.]

 

May 21.—Early this morning we proceeded upwards, our prospect more gloomy than ever. The path, which still lay up steep ridges, was very slippery, owing to the rain upon the clayey soil, and was only passable from the hold afforded by interlacing roots of trees.

At 8000 feet, some enormous detached masses of micaceous gneiss rose abruptly from the ridge, they were covered with mosses and ferns, and from their summit, 7000 feet, a good view of the surrounding vegetation is obtained. The mast of the forest is formed of:—

(1) Three species of oak, of which Q. annulata ? with immense lamellated acorns, and leaves sixteen inches long, is the tallest and the most abundant.—(2) Chesnut.—(3) Laurineae of several species, all beautiful forest-trees, straight-holed, and umbrageous above.—(4) Magnolias.* [Other trees were Pyrus, Saurauja (both an erect and climbing species), Olea, cherry, birch, alder, several maples, Hydrangea, one species of fig, holly, and several Araliaceous trees. Many species of Magnoliaceae (including the genera Magnolia, Michelia, and Talauma) are found in Sikkim: Magnolia Campbellii, of 10,000 feet, is the most superb species known. In books on botanical geography, the magnolias are considered as most abounding in North America, east of the Rocky Mountains; but this is a great mistake, the Indian mountains and islands being the centre of this natural order.]—(5) Arborescent rhododendrons, which commence here with the R. arboreum. At 8000 and 9000 feet, a considerable change is found in the vegetation; the gigantic purple Magnolia Campbellii replacing the white; chesnut disappears, and several laurels: other kinds of maple are seen, with Rhododendron argenteum, and Stauntonia, a handsome climber, which has beautiful pendent clusters of lilac blossoms.

 

At 9000 feet we arrived on a long flat covered with lofty trees, chiefly purple magnolias, with a few oaks, great Pyri and two rhododendrons, thirty to forty feet high (_R. barbatum,_ and _R.

arboreum,_ var. roseum): Skimmia and Symplocos were the common shrubs. A beautiful orchid with purple flowers (_Caelogyne Wallichii_) grew on the trunks of all the great trees, attaining a higher elevation than most other epiphytical species, for I have seen it at 10,000 feet.

 

A large tick infests the small bamboo, and a more hateful insect I never encountered. The traveller cannot avoid these insects coming on his person (sometimes in great numbers) as he brushes through the forest; they get inside his dress, and insert the proboscis deeply without pain. Buried head and shoulders, and retained by a barbed lancet, the tick is only to be extracted by force, which is very painful. I have devised many tortures, mechanical and chemical, to induce these disgusting intruders to withdraw the proboscis, but in vain. Leeches* [I cannot but think that the extraordinary abundance of these Anelides in Sikkim may cause the death of many animals.

Some marked murrains have followed very wet seasons, when the leeches appear in incredible numbers; and the disease in the cattle, described to me by the Lepchas as in the stomach, in no way differs from what leeches would produce. It is a well-known fact, that these creatures have lived for days in the fauces, nares, and stomachs of the human subject, causing dreadful sufferings, and death. I have seen the cattle feeding in places where the leeches so abounded, that fifty or sixty were frequently together on my ankles; and ponies are almost maddened by their biting the fetlocks.] also swarm below 7000

feet; a small black species above 3000 feet, and a large yellow-brown solitary one below that elevation.

 

Our ascent to the summit was by the bed of a watercourse, now a roaring torrent, from the heavy and incessant rain. A small Anagallis (like tenella), and a beautiful purple primrose, grew by its bank. The top of the mountain is another flat ridge, with depressions and broad pools. The number of additional species of plants found here was great, and all betokened a rapid approach to the alpine region of the Himalaya. In order of prevalence the trees were,—the scarlet Rhododendron arboreum and barbatum, as large bushy trees, both loaded with beautiful flowers and luxuriant foliage; R. Falconeri, in point of foliage the most superb of all the Himalayan species, with trunks thirty feet high, and branches bearing at their ends only leaves eighteen inches long: these are deep green above, and covered beneath with a rich brown down. Next in abundance to these were shrubs of Skimmia Laureola,* [This plant has been lately introduced into English gardens, from the northwest Himalaya, and is greatly admired for its aromatic, evergreen foliage, and clusters of scarlet berries. It is a curious fact, that this plant never bears scarlet berries in Sikkim, apparently owing to the want of sun; the fruit ripens, but is of a greenish-red or purplish colour.] Symplocos, and Hydrangea; and there were still a few purple magnolias, very large Pyri, like mountain ash, and the common English yew, eighteen feet in circumference, the red bark of which is used as a dye, and for staining the foreheads of Brahmins in Nepal. An erect white-flowered rose (_R. sericea,_ the only species occurring in Southern Sikkim) was very abundant: its numerous inodorous flowers are pendent, apparent as a protection from the rain; and it is remarkable as being the only species having four petals instead of five.

 

A currant was common, always growing epiphytically on the trunks of large trees. Two or three species of Berberry, a cherry, Andromeda, Daphne, and maple, nearly complete, I think, the list of woody plants. Amongst the herbs were many of great interest, as a rhubarb, and Aconitum palmatum, which yields one of the celebrated “Bikh”

poisons.* [“Bikh” is yielded by various Aconita. All the Sikkim kinds are called “gniong” by Lepchas and Bhoteeas, who do not distinguish them. The A. Napellus is abundant in the northwest Himalaya, and is perhaps as virulent a Bikh as any species.]

Of European genera I found Thalictrum, Anemone, Fumaria, violets, Stellaria, Hypericum, two geraniums, balsams, Epilobium, Potentilla, Paris and Convallariae, one of the latter has verticillate leaves, and its root also called “bikh,” is considered a very virulent poison.

 

Still, the absence or rarity at this elevation of several very large natural families,* [_Ranunculaceae, Fumariae, Cruciferae, Alsineae, Geranicae, Leguminosae, Potentilla, Epilobium, Crassulaceae, Saxifrageae, Umbelliferae, Lonicera, Valerianeae, Dipsaceae,_ various genera of Compositae, Campanulaceae, Lobeliaceae, Gentianeae, Boragineae, Scrophularineae, Primulaceae, Gramineae.] which have numerous representatives at and much below the same level in the inner ranges, and on the outer of the Western Himalaya, indicate a certain peculiarity in Sikkim. On the other hand, certain tropical genera are more abundant in the temperate zone of the Sikkim mountains, and ascend much higher there than in the Western Himalaya: of this fact I have cited conspicuous examples in the palms, plantains, and tree-ferns. This ascent and prevalence of tropical species is due to the humidity and equability of the climate in this temperate zone, and is, perhaps, the direct consequence of these conditions. An application of the same laws accounts for the extension of similar features far beyond the tropical limit in the Southern Ocean, where various natural orders, which do not cross the 30th and 40th parallels of N. latitude, are extended to the 55th of S. latitude, and found in Tasmania, New Zealand, the so-called Antarctic Islands south of that group, and at Cape Horn itself.

 

The rarity of Pines is perhaps the most curious