hot springs wherever they occur is very natural and has been noticed by Humboldt, "Pers. Narr." iv. 195, who states that on Christianity being introduced into Iceland, the natives refused to be baptised in any but the water of the Geysers. I have mentioned at chapter xxii the uses to which the Yeumtong hot springs are put; and the custom of using artificial hot baths is noticed at vol. i., chapter xiii.] The villagers at Keadom, where we slept on the 26th, were busy cutting the crops of millet, maize, and _Amaranthus._ A girl who, on my way down the previous month, had observed my curiosity about a singular variety of the maize, had preserved the heads on their ripening, and now brought them to me. The peaches were all gathered, and though only half ripe, were better than Dorjiling produce. A magnificent tree of _Bucklandia,_ one of the most beautiful evergreens in Sikkim, grew near this village; it had a trunk twenty-one feet seven inches in girth, at five feet from the ground, and was unbranched for forty feet.* [This superb tree is a great desideratum in our gardens; I believe it would thrive in the warm west of England. Its wood is brown, and not valuable as timber, but the thick, bright, glossy, evergreen foliage is particularly handsome, and so is the form of the crown. It is also interesting in a physiological point of view, from the woody fibre being studded with those curious microscopic discs so characteristic of pines, and which when occurring on fossil wood are considered conclusive as to the natural family to which such woods belong. Geologists should bear in mind that not only does the whole natural order to which _Bucklandia_ belongs, possess this character, but also various species of _Magnoliaceae_ found in India, Australia, Borneo, and South America.] Ferns and the beautiful air-plant _Coelogyne Wallichii_ grew on its branches, with other orchids, while _Clematis_ and _Stauntonia_ climbed the trunk. Such great names (Buckland, Staunton, and Wallich) thus brought before the traveller's notice, never failed to excite lively and pleasing emotions: it is the ignorant and unfeeling alone who can ridicule the association of the names of travellers and naturalists with those of animals and plants.