We arrived at Choongtam (for the fourth time) at noon, and took up our quarters in a good house near the temple. The autumn and winter flowering plants now prevailed here, such as _Labiatae,_ which are generally late at this elevation; and grasses, which, though rare in the damp forest regions, are so common on these slopes that I here gathered twenty-six kinds. I spent a day here in order to collect seeds of the superb rhododendrons* [These Rhododendrons are now all flourishing at Kew and elsewhere: they are _R. Dalhousiae, arboreum, Maddeni, Edgeworthii, Aucklandii_ and _virgatum._] which I had discovered in May, growing on the hills behind. The ascent was now difficult, from the length of the wiry grass, which rendered the slopes so slippery that it was impossible to ascend without holding on by the tussocks. A ragged Tibetan mendicant (Phud) was amusing the people: he put on a black mask with cowrie shells for eyes, and danced uncouth figures with a kind of heel and toe shuffle, in excellent time, to rude Tibetan songs of his own: for this he received ample alms, which a little boy collected in a wallet. These vagrants live well upon charity; they bless, curse, and transact little affairs of all kinds up and down the valleys of Sikkim and Tibet; this one dealt in red clay teapots, sheep and puppies. We found Meepo at Choongtam: I had given him leave (when here last) to go back to the Rajah, and to visit his wife; and he had returned with instructions to conduct me to the Chola and Yakla passes, in Eastern Sikkim. These passes, like that of Tunkra (chapter xxii), lead over the Chola range to that part of Tibet which is interposed between Sikkim and Bhotan. My road lay past the Rajah's residence, which we considered very fortunate, as apparently affording Campbell an opportunity of a conference with his highness, for which both he and the Tchebu Lama were most anxious. On the way down the Lachen-Lachoong, we found the valley still flooded (as described at chapters xviii and xxx), and the alders standing with their trunks twelve feet under water; but the shingle dam was now dry and hard: it would probably soften, and be carried away by the first rains of the following year. I left here the temperate flora of northern Sikkim, tropical forms commencing to appear: of these the nettle tribe were most numerous in the woods. A large grape, with beautiful clusters of round purple berries, was very fair eating; it is not the common vine of Europe, which nevertheless is probably an Himalayan plant, the _Vitis Indica._* [The origin of the common grape being unknown, it becomes a curious question to decide whether the Himalayan _Vitis Indica_ is the wild state of that plant: an hypothesis strengthened by the fact of Bacchus, etc., having come from the East.] Illustration--TIETAN PHUD.