From Sakeding we descended steeply through a forest of the finest juniper trees that I had yet seen. These grew 80 to 90 feet high, and many of their trunks were 18 feet to 20 feet in circumference. As a rule they had clean stems, without a branch for 50 feet or 60 feet. The branches were all hung with grey lichens. We now descended beside the muddy and tempestuous waters of the Kama-chu. The juniper forest gradually gave way to silver firs--wonderful trees of enormous size and great age. We passed through many open glades, park-like in appearance, with grand clumps of fir trees or sycamore dotted here and there. The hillsides were absolutely running over with water, and often for several hundred yards we walked along logs put down to try and avoid the mud and the running water. As many of these rounded logs were very slippery, both we and our coolies had to proceed with caution, and even so we experienced many a fall. At Chu-tronu--10,200 feet--there was a well-made wooden bridge, 60 feet long, which spanned the river where it flowed in a narrow channel between two great rocks. We crossed this bridge, and finding a broad open space there, I selected a spot suitable for our camp and ordered the coolies to cut down some of the grass where we intended to pitch the tents. I could not at first make out why they kept jumping about when thus engaged, but on going to investigate, I found that the place was alive with leeches; however, as there was no other better place in which to camp, we had to make the best of it. The men collected some dry bamboos out of an old shepherd's hut which was close by; these they burnt on the sites where we were to pitch our tents, hoping by this means to drive away the leeches. This method, however, was not very successful, for all that evening we were busy picking leeches off our clothes, legs, hands or heads. They climbed up the sides of the tents and dropped down into our food, our cups and on to our plates. Wollaston invented the best way of killing them, which was by cutting them in two with a pair of scissors. Our interpreter remonstrated with him, as he said this method increased the number of leeches, thinking that both ends of them would grow. After a somewhat restless and disturbed night, due to these leeches, we started off next morning to go down to the junction of the Kama River with the Arun. The distance as the crow flies was only about 6 miles, but we did not realise the kind of path that we should have to traverse. In that short distance we must have risen and fallen quite 5,000 feet. The path was never level and always very rough and stony. At first it led through beautiful glades running with moisture and over logs buried, most of them, inches deep in the water; they were, however, better to walk on than the soft mud there was on either side. The silver firs were now at their best--trees over 100 feet in height, and with stems 20 feet to 25 feet in circumference.