At the highest point of the valley which I reached, water boiled at 191.3, indicating an elevation of 11,903 feet. The temperature at 1 p.m. was nearly 70 degrees, and of the wet bulb 55 degrees, indicating a dryness of 0.462, and dew point 47.0. Such phenomena of heat and dryness are rare and transient in the wet valleys of Sikkim, and show the influence here of the Tibetan climate.* [I gathered here, amongst an abundance of alpine species, all of European and arctic type, a curious trefoil, the _Parochetus communis,_ which ranges through 9000 feet of elevation on the Himalaya, and is also found in Java and Ceylon.] After boiling my thermometer on these occasions, I generally made a little tea for the party; a refreshment to which they looked forward with child-like eagerness. The fairness with which these good-hearted people used to divide the scanty allowance, and afterwards the leaves, which are greatly relished, was an engaging trait in their simple character: I have still vividly before me their sleek swarthy faces and twinkling Tartar eyes, as they lay stretched on the ground in the sun, or crouched in the sleet and snow beneath some sheltering rock; each with his little polished wooden cup of tea, watching my notes and instruments with curious wonder, asking, "How high are we?" "How cold is it?" and comparing the results with those of other stations, with much interest and intelligence. On the 11th June, my active people completed a most ingenious bridge of branches of trees, bound by withes of willow; by which I crossed to the north bank, where I camped on an immense flat terrace at the junction of the rivers, and about fifty feet above their bed. The first step or ascent from the river is about five feet high, and formed of water-worn boulders, pebbles, and sand, scarcely stratified: the second, fully 1000 yards broad, is ten feet high, and swampy. The uppermost is fifteen feet above the second, and is covered with gigantic boulders, and vast rotting trunks of fallen pines, buried in an impenetrable jungle of dwarf small-leaved holly and rhododendrons. The surface was composed of a rich vegetable mould, which, where clear of forest, supported a rank herbage, six to eight feet high.* [This consisted of grasses, sedges, _Bupleurum,_ rhubarb, _Ranunculus, Convallaria, Smilacina,_ nettles, thistles, _Arum,_ balsams, and the superb yellow _Meconopsis Nepalensis,_ whose racemes of golden poppy-like flowers were as broad as the palm of the hand; it grows three and even six feet high, and resembles a small hollyhock; whilst a stately _Heracleum,_ ten feet high, towered over all. Forests of silver fir, with junipers and larch, girdled these flats and on their edges grew rhododendrons, scarlet _Spiraea,_ several honeysuckles, white _Clematis,_ and _Viburnum._ Ferns are much scarcer in the pine-woods than elsewhere in the forest regions of the Himalaya. In this valley (alt. 10,850 feet), I found only two