The first party left Darjeeling on May 18, and the second party the following day. I remained behind to see the second party off, and then by doing a double march I caught the first party up that evening at Kalimpong, not, however, without noticing on the way that several of our mules were already knocked up. The night before we started rain came down in torrents, and it was still pouring when the mules came round in the morning, and though the rain stopped soon afterwards yet the hillsides were all wreathed in soft grey mists and every moss-hung branch and tree dripped steadily with moisture all day long. The first day's march from Darjeeling was to Peshoke--a seventeen-mile march and down hill all the way after Ghoom. From Darjeeling we gradually ascended some 500 feet to Ghoom and then for 6 miles followed the well-engineered cart road which leads below Senchal to the new military cantonment of Takda which is, I believe, about to be abandoned, as the Gurkhas, for whom it was built, are not at all happy there. During the war it was used as a German internment camp. Along this ridge there are magnificent forests of evergreen oaks, all of which were covered with ferns and orchids and long trailing mosses. This first ridge rising straight out of the plains condenses all the moisture-laden winds that blow up from the Bay of Bengal and causes it almost always to be enveloped in clouds and mists. The path now rapidly descended 4,000 feet, through tea plantations. The whole hillside was covered with tea bushes, neatly planted in lines, and showing a very vivid green at this time of the year. Here and there grew tall tree ferns, 20 feet to 30 feet in height, their stems covered with ferns and Coelogene orchids. The air was now growing hotter and hotter as we descended, but the wonderful and varied vegetation, the beautiful and brilliantly coloured butterflies--for which the Teesta Valley is famous--that flitted across the path in front of us, proved an irresistible attraction, and made us forget the fact that we were dripping with perspiration from every pore. We had already descended nearly 5,000 feet by the time that we reached the P.W.D. bungalow at Peshoke, which was situated in a clearing in the forest. We were, however, still 2,000 feet above the muddy Teesta River which ran down below us in its steamy gorge, and the next morning saw us descending 2,000 feet through a Sal forest by a slippery path of clay leading to the suspension bridge which crosses the mighty river that with its affluents drains the whole of Sikkim. It rushes along with irresistible force in mighty waves and rapids, and though attempts have been made to float timber down it for commercial purposes, yet the current is too swift and the logs were all smashed to pieces. Here at the bridge we were only 700 feet above the sea and the heat was intense. Several mules had been left exhausted at Peshoke and had been unable to