That six or seven different tribes, without any feudal system or coercive head, with different languages and customs, should dwell in close proximity and in peace and unity, within the confined territory of Sikkim, even for a limited period, is an anomaly; the more especially when it is considered that except for a tincture of the Boodhist religion among some few of the people, they are all but savages, as low in the scale of intellect as the New Zealander or the Tahitian, and beneath those races in ingenuity and skill as craftsmen. Wars have been waged amongst them, but they were neither sanguinary nor destructive, and the fact remains no less remarkable, that at the period of our occupying Dorjiling, friendship and unanimity existed amongst all these tribes; from the Tibetan at 14,000 feet, to the Mechi of the plains; under a sovereign whose temporal power was wholly unsupported by even the semblance of arms, and whose spiritual supremacy was acknowledged by very few. Chapter VI Excursion from Dorjiling to Great Rungeet—Zones of vegetation—Tree-ferns—Palms, upper limit of—Leebong, tea plantations—Ging—Boodhist remains—Tropical vegetation—Pines—Lepcha clearances—Forest fires—Boodhist monuments—Fig—Cane bridge and raft over Rungeet—Sago-palm—India-rubber—Yel Pote—Butterflies and other insects—Snakes—Camp—Temperature and humidity of atmosphere—Junction of Teesta and Rungeet—Return to Dorjiling—Tonglo, excursion to—Bamboo flowering—Oaks—Gordonia—Maize, hermaphrodite flowered—Figs—Nettles—Peepsa—Simonbong, cultivation at—European fruits at Dorjiling—Plains of India. A very favourite and interesting excursion from Dorjiling is to the cane bridge over the Great Rungeet river, 6000 feet below the station. To this an excellent road has been cut, by which the whole descent of six miles, as the crow flies, is easily performed on pony-back; the road distance being only eleven miles. The scenery is, of course, of a totally different description from that of Sinchul, or even of the foot of the hills, being that of a deep mountain-valley. I several times made this trip; on the excursion about to be described, and in which I was accompanied by Mr. Barnes, I followed the Great Rungeet to the Teesta, into which it flows.