On the following morning the Lama proceeded to Dorjiling, and I continued the ascent of Tendong, sending my men round the shoulder to Temi in the Teesta valley, where I proposed to pass the night. The road rapidly ascends by a narrow winding path, covered with a loose forest of oaks, rhododendrons, and various shrubs, not found at equal elevations on the wetter Dorjiling ranges: amongst, them the beautiful laburnum-like _Piptanthus Nepalensis,_ with golden blossoms, was conspicuous. Enormous blocks of white and red stratified quartz, and slate, some 20 and even 40 yards long, rest on the narrow ridge at 7000 feet elevation. The last ascent is up a steep rounded cone with a broad flat top, covered with dwarf bamboo, a few oaks, laurels, magnolias, and white-flowered rhododendron trees (_R. argenteum_), which obstructed the view. I hung the barometers near one of the many chaits on the summit, where there is also a rude temple, in which worship is performed once a year. The elevation is 8,671 feet by my observations.* [8,663 by Col. Waugh's trigonometrical observations.] The geological formation of Tendong in some measure accounts for its peculiar form. On the conical summit are hard quartzoze porphyries, which have apparently forced up the gneiss and slates, which dip in all directions from the top, and are full of injected veins of quartz. Below 7000 feet, mica-schist prevails, always inclined at a very high angle; and I found jasper near Namtchi, with other indications of Plutonic action. The descent on the north side was steep, through a rank vegetation, very different from that of the south face. The oaks are very grand, and I measured one (whose trunk was decayed, and split into three, however), which I found to be 49 feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground. Near Temi (alt. 4,770 feet) I gathered the fruit of _Kadsura,_ a climbing plant allied to Magnolia, bearing round heads of large fleshy red drupes, which are pleasantly acid and much eaten; the seeds are very aromatic.