# Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History/Chapter 3

Memoirs of Travel, Sport and Natural History by Henry John Elwes was first published in London in 1930, and edited by Edward G. Hawke
CHAPTER III
TOUR IN INDIA, 1870: MADRAS, DARJEELING AND SIKKIM
On January 16th, 1870, I landed at Madras after a bad passage of twenty- eight days from Marseilles in the P. and O. Mooltan. I stayed at the Club, where I was introduced to the late Colonel Michael, one of the founders of the Forest Service in the Presidency, and well known as a great hunter. This Club was then the ne plus ultra of Anglo-Indian luxury; and I was much amused to find that a servant with a pellet bow was constantly walking about to scare the crows, which were so bold that they often attempted, sometimes with success, to plunder the dishes as they were carried from the kitchen to the dining-room.
I left Madras by train for Trichinopoly, where I had to wait a day for my luggage, and went on by bullock cart to Madura. In those days trotting bullocks, which were changed about every six miles, were the usual means of locomotion on the plains of Southern India, averaging about five miles an hour when the roads were dry and level. At Madura I was hospitably entertained by Mr. Arbuthnot, the Collector, who showed me the temples, which are very large and curious. I was much interested in the civil court where Arbuthnot heard cases daily; he told me that he had great difficulty in preventing the natives employed about the court, and even his own servants, from taking bribes from the suitors to get influence in their favour.
On January 22nd my brother officers and companions, Captain Barne and the Hon. F. Bridgeman, who had gone out a fortnight earlier, returned from the Sherramalay Hills where they had been hunting for a week and had killed three bison. After spending some days in engaging servants, buying ponies and getting camp outfit, in which we were much helped by Arbuthnot, we started on the evening of the 26th for Tirimungalam, about twelve miles out, in a dog-cart, and there found two bullock carts waiting to take us to the foot of the hills. Owing to the muddy rivers which had to be crossed, and in which the carts often stuck, it was a slow night’s journey, without much sleep. In the morning we breakfasted at a large village, and rode thence to the foot of a pass which led into the Wursenaad valley, about seventeen miles, where we found our camp pitched in an open spot on the banks of a river.
The Wursenaad valley at that time was mostly filled with thick jungle, and a very favourite place for elephants; it was more or less preserved by the Collector of Madura for the sport of himself and his friends. Native trackers had already been engaged, and gave excellent reports of the number of elephants in the valley.
In those days, when breech-loaders and express rifles were hardly known, heavy rifles or smooth bores were considered the best for elephant hunting, and I had been lent by Colonel Michael a single 4-bore rifle weighing over twenty pounds, which was loaded with round bullet weighing four to the pound, and an ounce of powder. The kick of this rifle was such ​that one did not wish to fire it, except at an elephant, as it left its mark on one’s shoulder* We had been carefully drilled by Arbuthnot as to the great importance of getting as close as possible before firing, and of aiming only at those spots on the head where a bullet would pene¬ trate the brain, As none of us had any experience in elephant hunting, except our host, he thought it best that we should hunt in couples, draw¬ ing lots for first shot, with the understanding that, if the elephant did not fall to the first shot, the other man should fire at once.
On the 28th the trackers, who had been out since daylight, came in to say that there were elephants feeding within two miles of camp. When we drew near the place, it was discovered that there were two distinct herds, but the jungle was so dense that it was impossible to say whether there were any tuskers with them. Arbuthnot and Bridgeman went after one herd, Barne and I took the other. We followed the tracks for a long time, crossing a beautiful stream with sandy pools overhung by large teak and tamarind trees, and finally got near the herd in a place where the ground was soft and marshy. The jungle was so dense that one could not see twenty yards in any direction, but we followed the fresh tracks very cautiously and finally sighted, about twenty yards off in an opening, two cows, one of which had a calf, and a male with moderate tusks. They did not see us, and I took a steady shot with the big rifle at what I believed to be the correct spot in the bull’s forehead; but he did not fall, and went off with the cows. 1 had hit him a few inches too low. Barne tried to cut him off, but missed him in the thick bush, and when we rejoined each other we decided to follow the track, which was slightly marked with blood. I do not mind confessing that, though when the beasts were in sight I was perfectly cool and free from funk, yet when following up a wounded bull, who might charge at any moment through the thick jungle, I was not so comfortable. Colonel Michael had told me of a case when he was charged by a wounded elephant, who actually tried to drive his tusks through him whilst he lay on the ground; by a miraculous chance one tusk was broken and only pressed on his body without breaking the skin, whilst the sound tusk made a hole in the ground beside him. How¬ ever we never saw our elephant again, and, as the body was never found, I suppose that he recovered from the wound.
For the next week we continued hunting in this valley without much success, for though Bridgeman killed a small tusker, and Barne wounded another, I never had another chance at an elephant; we did not like to shoot at any other game for fear of disturbing the elephants. On one occa¬ sion I was so close to a cow that I could see her trunk breaking off branches within five yards of me; but I never saw her body, and when she got my wind she went off with a rush and very nearly ran over Bridegman, who was behind a tree. The salt licks were probably the great attraction for elephants there; the valley, uninhabited except by a few jungle men, is said to be very unhealthy for most of the year.
Early in February, as Arbuthnot had to return to his work, we broke up our camp and marched to a large village called Bodenaikenoor, near which place bison are found on the hills adjoining the Travancore territory. Here we were to meet Mr. Munro, who was in the service of the Rajah of ​Travancore as Collector and Magistrate of the Cardamom Hills, which form the southern part of the range known farther north as the Arnamalai Hills. We started before daylight to ascend the pass, about 4,400 feet high, which leads into the Cardamom Hills. At the top of the pass we came out into an open grass country in which the glens or cholahs are wooded, as in the Nilgiri Hills. After a few miles’ riding we came to a magnificent forest, in which some of the trees must have been 200 feet high, without a branch for two-thirds of their length and with wide spreading buttresses at their base. In all this country there are wild elephants, but not so many wild birds as in the lower hills, though most of them are of different species. The ground below is fairly open and more or less cultivated m small patches with the cardamom plant which grows here naturally, and is valued for its seeds, at that time worth six shillings a pound. We found Munro at a place called Colapara, where lie lived during the season of the cardamom harvest; he had a number of natives employed in gathering the seeds, which at that time were a Government monopoly. On February 12th I went out early with Bridgeman, who wounded a big sambur stag in the long grass, but we did not succeed in recovering it. After breakfast we heard of some elephants which had been disturbed by our shots, among which there was a big tusker, so we followed their trail for some way down a narrow valley with rocky hills on either side. The herd were evidently not much alarmed, as they had crossed the stream several times, and soon I came in sight of three cows, two calves and a young bull going slowly along in grass eight feet high, about 100 yards off. Then a big tusker, in company with a cow, appeared behind them, but we could not get nearer than within forty yards of him on account of the stream and high grass. As it was Bridgeman’s turn for first shot, I waited till he had fired at the ear, and then, as the bull did not fall, I aimed at the heart with the big rifle. He fell, but got up again, getting two more shots as he rushed away and disappeared in the grass. After reloading we climbed a rock, to get a better view of the ground, and we both fell into a deep hole hidden in the long grass. On getting out we thought we heard a low groan, and, approaching carefully, found the big bull lying dead. As all the shots were on the side on which he had fallen and it was im¬ possible to turn the body over, we agreed to divide the tusks, which weighed about forty-five pounds each and were considered a large pair for that district.
Though it is now fifty-two years ago, I cannot remember that this success caused me as much pleasure as several stalks after stags, elk and chamois have since done, and I do not understand, except for the danger and the value of the ivory, why elephant hunting, in India at least, is ranked among the highest forms of big game hunting. For my part, I would not care to shoot another elephant in India, and I have never had the chance in Africa.
A very curious thing happened to Munro on one of his marches in these hills, which I tell exactly as he told it to me. He was riding along on his pony, with his coolies and servants some way ahead, when he heard a great shouting from the men, who had all climbed into trees, A large rogue elephant was standing in the path, with one foot on the case of ​Munro’s big rifle, the stock of which was broken, and his trunk over the large medicine chest which Munro was in the habit of carrying in order to doctor his numerous coolies. The elephant appeared stupefied, and remained for some time without moving. When at last the animal went off, Munro found that a bottle of chloroform in the chest was broken, and this had apparently affected the elephant. The same animal the next year attacked Lord Waterpark, who was riding in the district, and pursued his pony, which it caught and killed, after the rider had jumped off. We saw the bones of this rogue lying on the hillside, where he had been killed by a native armed with a matchlock, who had crept up close to him and put an iron bullet into his brain.
I had very bad luck one evening when I had gone out alone with my Henry 500 express to look for sambur. I spied a large tusker standing alone in the long grass, and saw that he had very long and very much curved tusks. As I had only two solid hardened bullets with me, I determined to follow the elephant till I got what seemed a chance for a deadly shot, and, after going round to get the wind right, I followed the tracks through grass about eight feet high. The elephant, however, turned back and returned on the other side of a small nullah, parallel to his former track, so that I only saw him when he was pretty close to me. I remained still until he moved on, and then I took what I thought a sure aim at the temple, and fired. The elephant shook his head but did not fall, I remained motionless, expecting a charge; but he moved on into a dense cholah, where I did not dare to follow him alone, as it was now getting dusk. The only thing I could do was to light fires in the grass to keep him from coming out; this I did and returned to camp. Next day we found him gone. Munro sent out trackers who followed his tracks a long way into the low country, where he joined a herd; they either lost the tracks or were afraid to go further. Some time after, Munro heard that an elephant with very long and curly tusks, which was almost certainly my beast, had been found dead with a bullet in his head, and the tusks had been cut out and carried to the Rajah of Travancore. I asked Munro to try and purchase them for me and offered 600 rupees, which was a high price at that date. But they were so much admired for their length and shape that he could not get them, and thus I lost the finest trophy that I ever killed.
We visited several coffee planters who had recently settled in the neighbourhood of Peermaad at about 3,500 feet elevation in the Travan¬ core Hills, Coffee planting was then a very profitable business in this district, as land and labour were cheap, and the crops good, something like ten pounds per acre profit being often realised. Cinchona had just begun to be grown, but tea planting was not started for years afterwards, though I believe that a large part of the forests over which I hunted are now cleared and covered with thriving and profitable tea gardens.
The best book written by a planter that I have ever read is Experience of a Planter in Mysore, by R.H. Elliot, now of Clifton Park near Kelso, where he has been as successful in agriculture as he was in planting.
During our stay in this beautiful country I ascended one of the highest mountains in Southern India, which I do not think had then been measured, ​but which I made by aneroid 8,200 feet. In March it was quite cold up there, and the cholahs were filled with beautiful rhododendrons in flower (R. arboreum), some of which attained thirty or forty feet in height. Another beautiful plant which grew there is Lilium neilgherrense, which, through the help of Mr. Morgan of the Forest Department, I afterwards introduced into cultivation, and figured for the first time in my work on “Lilies," but like many other species of lilies it has not proved as easy to keep as it was to introduce. Of birds I made a nice little collection in the Travancore Hills, but I found that collecting and sport do not well combine, as one cannot shoot birds without the risk of disturbing game, to which my companions naturally objected. But though there are a certain number of species peculiar to these mountains, they are nothing like as numerous, as varied or as interesting as the birds of the Himalayas.
After spending six weeks very pleasantly in camp, Bridgeman and I left Peermaad and rode twenty-two miles to the ghaut or pass which goes down to the plains. Sending our ponies back we went on for ten miles to Cumbum in a bullock bandy. From there we went on for thirty-five miles to Periacolum, near the foot of the Palni Hills, where Arbuthnot had a bungalow. We walked up a well-graded path through a beautiful forest to about 5,000 feet, and found a pleasant party of engineer officers in the bungalow. The general features of this group of mountains are very similar to those of the Nilgiri Hills, consisting of grassy downs interspersed with wooded dingles or cholahs. At 7,000 feet Lord Napier had a pretty little bungalow, which commanded a lovely view of the plains, and another man had a garden where some English fruits and vegetables throve very well. Potatoes were as good as in England, and many Australian trees had been planted and grew very fast and well. But at that time there were hardly any residents in these hills, and both sambur, ibex and elephants were fairly numerous. I collected some birds which are peculiar to this range, including a blackbird.
We left Madras by sea and reached Calcutta on March 30th. On landing we were met by a brother officer who was aide-de-camp to Lord Mayo, then Governor-General, and who brought us an invitation to stay at Government House, We remained there a few days and took part in a day's hog hunting with the Calcutta Tent Club. At the Calcutta Museum I found Dr. Anderson, the then Superintendent, who had lately returned from an expedition to Upper Burmah and the frontiers of Yunnan. I consulted him as to the possibility of exploring the Mishmi Hills on the extreme north-east frontier of Assam, where many rare birds and animals were known to exist, and which I had intended to visit if possible. But, owing to the recent murder of two missionaries, Messrs. Krick and Bowie, in those hills, it was considered too dangerous, and Lord Mayo told me plainly that it would not be allowed by the Government, as they had already had a great deal of trouble in punishing the murderers, and had given orders that no one was to be allowed to go beyond the frontier of Assam.
He gave us an introduction to Colonel Haughton, who was then Com¬ missioner of Cooch Behar, and it was arranged that we should accompany a hunting party, which was being arranged by Dr, Brougham in the Terai ​near Jelpigori, where the Government elephants were placed at our service. I engaged a native bird-skinner on Dr. Anderson’s advice, as I found that in the great heat it was necessary to skin birds the same day they were shot. Though one can rarely trust the determination of the sex to a native, and I always wrote my labels before the skins were made up, it saved an immense deal of time, trouble and dirty work, which I had already found very irksome in Southern India, We left Calcutta with the Viceregal party, who were leaving for Simla on the 8th of April, and got to Sahibgunge at daylight. In those days one had a ferry of thirty miles in a steam tug to Caragola, and from there went in palkis to Purneah, as no carriage could be had. The next night we drove about 100 miles to the foot of the hills at Siligori, where there was a very fair dak bungalow on the banks of the Mahanuddi. This was then the end of the carriage road to Darjeeling.
As we heard from Colonel Haughton that the hunting party would not start for a week, we rode up to Darjeeling, staying for one night at Kursiong, a lovely place at about 4,500 feet on the top of the first steep ascent from the plains. In those days the forest came close up to the little hotel at Kursiong, where I passed some pleasant days in collecting birds, which were very numerous and all quite different from those of the plains. The forest at that elevation was splendid, the trees being covered with ferns, climbing aroids, creeping plants, orchids and mosses. I have never, except in Mexico, been able to collect so great a variety of birds in one place as I did here between 4,500 and 6,000 feet, A short visit to Darjeeling gave me such a good impression of the country that I determined to spend some months there. We were glad to meet Major Barnard, the officer in command of the depot, and Lieutenant Grenfell, of the 60th Rifles, afterwards Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell, who were to be the other members of the tiger-hunting party in the Terai.
I shall say nothing about the beautiful scenery and surroundings of Darjeeling, which has to me always been the most delightful place in India. Though several books have been written about Sikkim, Hooker’s Himalayan Journals stands out far above all others. In the twenty-two years which had elapsed since Hooker was there, a good deal of clearing had been done for tea-planting, but there were few changes compared to those which have come since the railway was made.
On April 15th we rode down again to Siligori, where we found tents from Jelpigori and the elephants assembled, all ready for work. But as Dr. Brougham had not arrived, it was decided to make a short hunt up to a place called Sivoke, where the Tista river emerges from the hills, and where, in those days, rhinoceros and tigers were abundant, This place is notoriously unhealthy, as is the whole of the Terai at this season, and I believe it was here that many of our men were infected by the malaria which broke up our party later. At that time it was not known that mosquitoes were the cause of our infection. It was supposed that the malaria was produced by the action of the sun on the wet or marshy ground, and that it was to be avoided best by sleeping in a house built on piles some feet above the ground, which was the custom of the Mechis, a tribe who were at one time the only permanent residents in the Terai. ​It was also thought that by sleeping in mosquito curtains, and not exposing oneself to the air before dawn or after sunset, it was possible to remain more or less immune. But I have no doubt that, though the constitutions of certain individuals, usually men of dark complexion and spare habit, are much less subject to fever than others, and though the continued use of small doses of quinine tends to weaken if not to keep off attacks of fever, yet no amount of precaution against mosquito bites will ever make it possible for Europeans or natives to live in the Terai during the rainy season without suffering from fever. The amount of illness and mortality which prevailed in all the districts at the foot of the hills, known as the Dooars, when they were first opened up by tea planters, was very serious, both among Europeans and among the coolies, who were mostly immigrants from Bengal.
Our first beat for rhinoceros took place on the other side of the Tista river, which was about a hundred yards wide and at that season was just fordable for elephants. It was very interesting to see how the smaller elephants took advantage of the breakwater formed by the larger ones and packed themselves together just below them in order to avoid the force of the rapid current. The water was almost over the backs of the smaller animals, which would have been washed off their feet if alone, but, feeling every step of the way carefully, all crossed safely.
We then formed a line of elephants at intervals of fifteen to twenty yards in the long grass and reeds which covered the country, and beat it with the flanking elephants rather in advance. There were a good many swamp-deer, but we found it very difficult to hit them, when shooting for the first time from the howdah of a moving elephant, and we only got one.
Later we beat a dry watercourse, 400 yards wide, which was full of dense reeds, so tall that even when standing up in the howdah one could hardly see the next elephant. In these reeds the rhinoceros lay and slept during the day, having regular runs along which they passed without being seen from above. Once or twice there was a rush, and if the elephant was quick enough to follow it up, and the reeds were not too dense, one got a snap shot, but I cannot say that the sport was very successful, or that it is, under such conditions, a sport that attracts me. Once a rhinoceros charged and struck one of the elephants with his horn, causing a regular stampede, and it was very difficult to get them into line again. We also found that a much better knowledge of the ground than any of our party possessed was necessary to beat it successfully for tigers, and the jemadar of the mahouts, on whom we had to depend a good deal, was not very keen about the job in the absence of his own chief, who was unable to join the party as we expected.
The chief interest of this kind of shooting, to me, consists in watching the behaviour and character of the different elephants. It was very curious to watch the way in which the elephants, at the word of command, bend and break down the branches and smaller trees which overhang their path, so as to let the howdah pass under them. They do not, however, seem to be able to break anything really large, and are particularly careful not to disturb any trees on which bees’ nests are fixed.
After another day’s hunting of the same character, in which a deer and ​two wild boars were bagged, and a large bear got away wounded, we returned to Siligori, shooting wild peacocks and jungle fowl on the way. Dr, Brougham had not arrived, so it was decided to form another camp farther from the foot of the hills, where the jungle was not so dense, and tigers were reported to be. On the way we halted at Titalya, where we found Mr. Davis, the police superintendent of the district, who had probably shot more rhinoceros in the Dooars than any man in India. The sepoys of a Gurkha regiment, which had been quartered at Jelpigori after the Bhutan war, were very keen and successful rhinoceros hunters, going out on foot in small parties and creeping along the paths formed by them in the dense reed beds. They had killed no less than seventy in the course of a year or so, and as the horns are highly valued in native medicine, they had made quite a lot of money by their hunting.
On the 23rd of April we got news of two tigers not far off, but the jungle was so much intersected with deep nullahs, full of dense thorns, through which the elephants could not pass, that we did not succeed in surrounding them, and the wild bees were so aggressive that the elephants were fairly driven out of the thicket at the critical point. Grenfell and Barnard both got badly stung, and the mahouts declared that it was impossible to get their elephants back again, as they fear the bees’ stings even more than their riders do.
On April 24th we moved camp again to a place which a man-eating tiger was reported to frequent, but, after beating down the Tulma river for three or four hours without finding him, we returned to camp. Barnard and Bridgeman were bathing in a pool close to the tents late in the afternoon, and the elephants were all unsaddled, when a man came rushing up with shouts of “Bagh,” and our companions told us that the tiger actually looked out of the thicket close to where they were in the water. We got the elephants ready as quickly as possible, and I was posted down the river some way forward, while Barnard and Bridgeman beat it down from the place where they had seen the tiger. My elephant, a fine large tusker, stood very quietly whilst I listened, and I very soon heard a shot. In two minutes a tiger appeared coming along the other bank of the stream, which was here nearly dried up. A thunderstorm had been brewing and it was getting so dark that I could hardly see my sights when I got my shot. The first barrel turned the tiger from me, up the almost perpendicular bank of the stream. The second seemed to break his back and he fell into the stream, which was there hardly a foot deep, with his four legs kicking in the air. But the storm burst with such extra¬ ordinary suddenness and violence that before I could get my elephant to the place where he lay, it was as dark as night, and the water was rushing over the spot where the tiger fell. I had some difficulty in finding my way back to camp, where the tents were flooded, the fires out, and the dinner spoilt.
Next morning I went out early to look for the tiger, but, after a long search, I could not find him. The body was found not far off two days later, when the skin was completely spoilt. It was very annoying to lose my first tiger in this way, especially as I never had a chance of another all to myself.
​We found tracks of another that day, and I shot a wild pig through the head, as it rushed past. The elephant nearly ran away, having, like many elephants, a horror of wild pigs, though he was perfectly staunch with tigers and had not moved an inch when I had my shot the day before.
After this we rode into Jelpigori, where we found Colonel Haughton, the Commissioner, a fine old soldier who had been through the Afghan, Bhutan and Khasia campaigns, and had served in Burmah and as Governor of the Andaman Islands. He was living in a large house built entirely of timber and bamboo, and we passed a very pleasant evening with him.
The next day, Bridgeman, Grenfell and I went to a place called Domohni, and camped in a grove of mangoes and areca palms. I added a few birds to my collection every day, though it was fearfully hot, and we began to feel the effects of the climate. Next morning Barnard, having got an extension of leave, arrived, and we went on to Ramshaihat, which was said to be a very good place for rhinoceros; it was a nasty malarious- looking spot, and a large held of semi-wild buffaloes made it both noisy and odoriferous.
Next day the others went out two hours before daylight, hoping to catch the rhinoceros feeding in the open, but I did not feel fit, and Bridgeman came in very seedy with fever before noon.
Barnard wounded a rhinoceros in the hind leg, and followed it for a long way on his elephant, firing away all his cartridges without bagging the beast.
It was now over 100° in the tent, and as Bridgeman was rather bad, I sent to Jelpigori for a palki to carry him in to the doctor as soon as possible, leaving Grenfell and Barnard in camp, where they shot several rhinoceros in the next few days.
As soon as Bridgeman was well enough to move we returned to Kursiong in the hills, and stayed there and at Darjeeling until the end of May, when he was sufficiently recovered to leave for England. Grenfell also had an attack of fever, no doubt caught in the Terai, but I escaped with a comparatively mild one.
The rainy season now set in for good. For the next two months Darjeel¬ ing was almost constantly in a cloud, and the air so damp that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping the collection of bird skins, which I was rapidly accumulating, in fair condition. My bird-stuffer became ill and went back to Calcutta, but I found a Lepcha, a native of Sikkim, who was quite a good collector, and whom I taught to make up bird skins very fairly well. As a rule the morning was clear for about an hour after day¬ light, when a drizzle set in which gradually turned to rain, continuing all day and night and becoming sometimes very heavy. For seven weeks there was not a single day without rain, and I did not once get a real view of Kanchenjunga, the highest mountain in the world except Mt. Everest, which, like Everest, is visible from near Darjeeling when the weather is clear.
I began to make a collection of butterflies and moths, which are there in greater abundance and variety than perhaps in any other place in the world. Most of them are caught by Lepchas who reside in the warmer valleys beyond Darjeeling, and who have acquired an ability in collecting ​which surpasses that of any other uncivilised people with whom I have ever come in contact. The Lepcha language is perhaps richer than any other in names for plants, birds, animals and insects, as the people seem to have a special talent for collecting plants and natural history specimens generally, which has been developed by long practice.
Colonel Mainwaring, a retired officer of the Bengal Army, who had lived at Darjeeling for many years, had studied their language, and had compiled a dictionary, very carefully and neatly written out in manuscript. He told me that there were approximately as many words in it as in Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon, and that there were few birds, beasts or insects too minute to be without a name in the Lepcha language. These primitive people have been gradually displaced from their homes by the great number of Nepalese, who have been attracted by the employment on tea plantations and public works, and who have settled in great numbers on the rich land in British Sikkim and Bhutan. These people, being much bolder, more energetic and industrious than the Lepchas, seem likely to overrun the lower hills of the Eastern Himalayas, where they are constantly extending eastward, even as far as Assam.
As I found the climate of Darjeeling too damp and foggy at this season to be suitable for my work, I accepted an invitation to stay at a tea planta¬ tion called Ging, 2,000 feet lower down on the road to the Rangit, which was managed by Mr. A. Macdonald for an English company. Finding this much pleasanter, I arranged to live with him until the weather made my expedition into the interior possible. At this plantation we lived in a good bungalow with plenty of room, and I had the advantage of being able to dry all my bird skins, insects and plants in the tea factory, where charcoal fires are constantly kept up to dry the tea. This tea industry, which had been started a few years previously, had then begun to recover from the very severe depression which was due to the extrava¬ gant and ill-managed operations of the companies who commenced it. Some of the gardens opened up at first were at too high an elevation, or on land so steep that the terraces were continually washed down by the rains. Many of them had been planted originally with China tea, which, though more delicate in flavour, could not compete in yield or in price with the stronger and more astringent tea made in Assam from the indigenous plant, which was now replacing the China variety everywhere in the district. But though a great deal of money had been lost from mismanage¬ ment at a time when almost any European was thought capable of looking after a tea plantation, yet wherever the land and situation were good, the management efficient, and the capital adequate, tea was paying very well indeed, and I have never made a better investment than in a plantation which, at Macdonald’s suggestion, we took up a year later.
The planters and civilians were all very hospitable, and though some of the civilians hardly seemed to recognise that the whole wealth of the Darjeeling district was due to the capital and enterprise of the planters, I made several friends among both sets, all of whom, I fear, have passed away. I also visited and spent a few days at the Government cinchona plantation at Mongpo, which was then under the temporary superintend¬ ence of Mr. C.B. Clarke, one of the most remarkable men in his way ​that I have ever met, with whom in later years I formed an intimate friendship in the Khasia hills.
The cinchona gardens were then being rapidly planted with the red barked species, Cinchona succirubra, which was found to succeed better at suitable elevations, 2,000 to 4,000 feet, than any other variety that had been tried. Though few of the trees were old enough to produce bark in quantities sufficient for any but experimental purposes, the gardens de- veloped later into one of the most successful and profitable investments that has been made by the Indian Government.
I also made excursions to the valley of the Rangit river, and crossed the Tista by a wonderful suspension bridge nearly 100 yards long and made entirely from rattan canes and bamboo. The Tista valley was then road¬ less, and the district of British Bhutan on the other side, which had been recently occupied, after the Bhutan war, was nearly all forest, with a few scattered clearings. I went along the ridge as far as Dumsong, a frontier post now abandoned, but the weather at this season was too continuously wet to make collecting profitable. Except for a few barking deer, which frequented only the steepest and most rocky places, there were no terrestrial mammalia or large game in the lower and middle regions of the hills, owing perhaps to the innumerable leeches which abounded during the rainy season.
In July I heard that Mr. William T. Blanford, of the Geological Survey, was desirous of making an expedition into the interior, and as he had the same objects and taste for natural history as myself, and was an experienced traveller in India, I arranged to join forces with him and travel together. I had plenty of time to make the necessary preparations for a journey which had not been attempted since Dr. Hooker's great expedition of twenty-two years before. Though the difficulties of supply and transport were known to be considerable, I had the support and good will of Major Morton, the Deputy Commissioner of Darjeeling, and had acquired sufficient knowledge of the dialect used in the district, a mixture of Hindustani, Nepalese and Bengali. I engaged a Sirdar or headman, a Bhutia named Guruk, a capable and trustworthy man who lived at Darjeeling and knew Tibetan more or less. He had charge of a selected gang of twenty-two coolies, all Bhutias, and I had a Lepcha servant, and two collectors to assist in shooting and skinning and in drying plants. Blanford had his own Hindu chuprassi, and in addition I sent on a party of ten Nepalese, from the higher regions of Nepal, who were to make a depot of rice in the interior; and who, I hoped, would be willing to accompany us in case the Bhutias were afraid to cross the Tibetan frontier.
Each of these coolies was paid at the rate of eight annas a day, and was to provide his own food whenever it was procurable. The loads of rice and other necessaries for ourselves, which we made as few as possible, were all carefully weighed as a maund (eighty pounds) each, and packed in the long bamboo baskets which all these hillmen use, and on the top of which they put their own pots, a blanket to sleep in, and any spare clothing they may have, the whole being topped by a more or less waterproof mat of bamboo, which covers the man’s load as well as his head and ​shoulders when on the march. Such loads, averaging nearly 100 pounds each, seem heavy for marching over such bad and steep and often slippery paths as we had before us, but the Bhutias and Nepalese often carry much more on their own business; and though they go slowly, and stop to rest often, they will do as long a march as we cared to do ourselves in such a hot and trying climate.
Blanford arrived from Calcutta early in August, and on the 10th I started all the coolies to await us at Dumsong on the other side of the Tista, and on the 12th started on my pony for the cane bridge, over which it was impossible to ride. It was a pouring wet morning, and as I found a bridge broken in the Rangit valley, I had to walk a good deal further than I liked. The eight miles up a steep ascent of 4,000 feet from the Tista bridge was one of the hardest grinds I ever had in a broiling sun, with the thermometer in the valley over 90°. 1 got in at dark, however, and found the servants waiting and the coolies gone on.
As Blanford had been a little out of sorts and had stayed a day longer at Ging, I managed next morning to borrow a mule from a policeman, which I sent down to meet him at the bridge. I myself followed our coolies, who had gone on about twenty miles along the ridge to a place in the forest where there were a few Bhutia houses, called Pedong, or Phyn- dong. Here I had my first night in the small tent we had between us, which was much better adapted for cold than for such a warm climate as this, for during the rainy season it is never cold or even chilly in the forest below 10,000 feet. Blanford joined me the next day, and we soon settled down to routine, which we found best suited to our work on the march. Unless the morning was exceptionally wet, or there was reason for delay, we breakfasted at daylight on tea and chupatties fried in ghee, and started the coolies as soon as the tents and baggage could be packed, but they would never start until they had cooked and eaten their first meal, which took at least an hour and often more, I generally got ahead on the path with one of my shikaris, as I found that in the early morning, before anyone had disturbed the path, I was most likely to find birds feeding on or near it. If I saw anything specially good, I would leave my shikari to get specimens and follow on, and after throe to five hours on the road I always tried to halt by a river, or in some agreeable place, for breakfast. We selected one of our best coolies to carry a light load and keep up with one of us, so that no time might be lost in waiting for cooking pots and food. We generally had curry of tomatoes and chicken with our rice, and when there were neither pineapples or bananas, we had some jam and biscuits. At the higher elevations we were sometimes able to get mutton or goat, but found that meat was by no means so necessary for hard work as many people suppose.
pedition into what was then a little-known country. But a detailed description of the journey with notes on the fauna was contributed by his companion, Mr, Blanford, to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.* Sikkim is bounded on the north, towards Tibet, by the main chain of the Himalayas, It was the object of the travellers to study the fauna of these lofty snow ranges, which no
Vol. xl., part 3, pp. 367 seq., and vol xli., part 2, pp. 30 seq. ​one save Hooker in 1848–9 had observed even cursorily. To avoid the discom¬ forts of the route up the Tista valley, which is very hot and very long, they intended to cross the Cho-la, Sikkim's eastern border lange, into the Chumbi valley and make their way northward along the edge of Tibet, re-crossing the main range into upper Sikkim by the Tankra-la pass. They hoped to find the Tibetan passes unguarded and to discover an unfrequented way on the western skirts of the Chumbi valley. They were, however, disappointed.
Leaving Phyndong on August 16th, 1870, the travellers crossed the Rishet valley to Rhinok, where they met an official sent by the Raja of Sikkim to beg them not to cross the Tibetan frontier. They pushed on in a north-easterly direction across the Rangchu valley to Chusachen and up a long forest-clad spur towards the upland pastures. At about 11,000 feet the dwarf bamboos were few, and the forest consisted mainly of silver fir and rhododendrons. An open space was gay with brilliant composite yellow flowers, on which many red-tailed green honey- suckers (Æthopyga ignicauda) were feeding. Amongst the dead leaves were found a few land shells, notably Alycaæus, Diplommalina, and a discoid Cyclophorus never before recorded at so great an elevation. "Elwes was as usual ahead,” writes Mr. Blanford: “I had marched along quietly.” They spent a night in a grassy valley, at a halting place called Gnatong, and on August 23rd marched up to a barren ridge forming the crest of the Jelep pass, at about 13,000 feet. “On the crest of the ridge some twenty Tibetans were posted to oppose our passage; they were quite unarmed, except with their knives, and remained seated around the pile of stones which marks the frontier; their Jong or Captain, a round-faced rosy Tibetan, with by no means an intelligent countenance, in the centre. He appeared to take no notice of us, and seemed solely occupied in muffling himself in his huge cloak to keep off the wind, which blew piercingly over the exposed ridge we were on. We subsequently learned that the guards, Jong and all, I believe, were merely villagers, who were ordered up to guard the frontier, and, singularly enough, neither on this nor any subsequent occasion did we meet with soldiers such as Hooker describes.”
"We sat down,” Mr. Blanford continues, “and ate some breakfast we had brought with us, and then Elwes became disgusted at the stolidity of the Tibetans, and determined to see if they could be induced to recognise our existence. I should have mentioned that two or three questions put to them through one of our men had only elicited short replies from one or two of the guard, the Jong remaining as insolently abstracted as if he expected immediate absorption into Nirvana. So to teach them a lesson of politeness, Elwes walked rapidly across the frontier and began descending the opposite side. The men were utterly taken by surprise; they stood up and crowded round me, then with one accord rushed after Elwes, scrambling rapidly over the rocks despite their long cloaks, and, finding that expostulation was useless, they flung themselves down in the path before us, beseeching us to return, and expressing to us by most emphatic gestures that all their throats would be cut if we persisted in entering Tibet. With all this there was no attempt at violence or threats; they got in our way as much as they could, but that was all. Hereupon we halted and explained to them as well as we could, through a very bad interpreter, that it was not polite to sit and stare at strangers without taking any further notice of them. I believe that this little incident had an excellent effect, for in all subsequent visits to frontier posts we were received with the greatest civility and politeness, and I am convinced that we rose in the estimation of the Tibetans by insisting on their treating us with proper respect.”
There was nothing for it but to retrace their steps to below the ridge. Then they turned north along the uplands to meet the Raja at Chumanako, where the Raja’s father had seized Hooker twenty-one years before. The Raja was friendly, but ​positively declined to sanction their crossing into Tibet. Their plan of keeping to the west side of the Chumbi valley, while avoiding Chumbi, was declared im¬ practicable; they must, said the Raja, descend to the Tista valley and follow it up to Lachung if they wished to reach the Tankrapass. On August 28th they rode up to the pass called Cho-la, 15,000 feet above the sea, but it was misty and there was no view. "At the frontier chait (or boundary pillar) we found an officer and a guard of about fifteen men, who were civil and greatly relished some whisky we had with us.” At Chumanako Elwes shot some birds, including the Kashmir dipper (Cinclus Cashmiriensis), Next day they started down the Cho-la valley for Tamlung, the Raja’s capital, and thence marched northward for four days, “ through much rain and swarms of leeches,” to Chungtam, at the confluence of the Lachen and Lachung rivers which form the Tista. They struck up the valley of the eastern stream, the Lachung, to the village of that name, where they camped on September 7th. “ Elwes went off to visit the Tankra pass on the second day, but I had been so much punished by the leeches in the hot valleys that I thought it advisable to rest a little.” The travellers met again higher up the valley at Yeomatong on September 13th. Elwes had been disappointed in his expectations of Ovis ammon, but he had obtained several good birds, Lerva, Accentor Nipalensis, Fringillauda nemoricola and Alsocomus Hodgsoni, the speckled wood-pigeon, “which it was rather surprising to find at an elevation of 13,000 or 14,000 feet.” The march was resumed on September 15th up the valley to Momay Sandong, about 15,000 feet, where the travellers heard that a Tibetan officer had come to meet them at the Donkia pass, ten miles away. Lest lie should turn them back, they inspected the Sibu-la, the pass 17,000 feet high leading over the mountain barrier between the Lachung and Lachen valleys, but they found it impracticable for laden coolies.
On September 17th they rode up to the Donkia-la and were received politely by the Tibetan guard. But their request for permission to cross the frontier and take the short and easy route westward to the Kongra Lama pass—a route traversed in 1849 by Hooker in the reverse direction—was refused. “ There was no threat of stopping us by force; the people only said 'If you choose to go by force we cannot stop you, but all our heads will be cut off.'" They waited three days and then argued the point with the Suba or Governor of Kambajong, who had now arrived on the scene. But he protested that he had direct orders to forbid them passage, However, they were rewarded by a superb view from the top of the pass, 18,500 feet high, "Cholamu lake is in front beneath the feet of the spectator; beyond is a desert of rounded hills. Farther away range alter range of mountains, some of them covered with snow, extend to a distance which the eye cannot appreciate. The total change of colour and form from the valleys of Sikkim, the utter barrenness, the intense clearness of the atmosphere, produce such an effect as if one were gazing into another world." “It is doubtless one of the most remarkable landscapes in the world and alone worth the journey from Darjeeling in order to see it,” says Mr, Blanford, and Elwes fully concurred in his opinion,
Elwes was, after all, fated to enter the forbidden land. “He had strolled out up the side valley which branches off from the Lachung to the west close to our camp and leads to a little-known pass called Sang-la, two or three miles west of Donkia pass. He had gone out without any intention of doing more than looking at the valley; indeed, being rather lame from leech-bites, he had stayed behind in order to rest, but he found himself so close to the frontier that he went on to the top of the pass, and then, seeing Cholamu lake beneath him, and no Tibetan in sight, the temptation to go on was irresistible and he descended to the lake, partly by a snow slope, partly over a shoot of stones. There he could find no one; he
Fig. 2.—LAKE IN THE SIKKIM BORDER HILLS NEAR THE JELEP-LA.
to climb back by Donkia pass and to astonish the Tibetans by appearing fiom the north.” Upon this Elwes comments; “ This was the hardest day's work I ever had, and if my Lepcha shikari had not persuaded me to return and found the track leading to the Donkia pass before it became dark, I should have bivouacked at the Cholamu lake without blankets. When I passed the Tibetan guard in the dark, they fired shots in our direction.” Next day the Tibetan governor was furious at Elwes's accidental violation of the frontier. As their coolies would not enter Tibet, the travellers had to agree to retrace their steps and reach Kongra Lama by the circuitous Sikkim route; though Mr. Blanford declares that the Tibetan guard had no reason to fear punishment if they had allowed him and his companion to follow in Hooker's track just across the frontier.
Elwes was now very lame after his long climbs and had to go south by easy stages. The slow journey down the Lachung valley refreshed him. On September 30th the party left Chungtam and marched up the Lachen, the western head-waters of the Tista, till they reached the Tibetan frontier again on October 4th. High up the valley, where its bed is composed of moraines alternating with stony flats, the travellers secured some rare birds of a Palæarctic type, notably Otocoris Elwesi; Leucosticte hæmatopyga—which was only known before from Western Tibet—and another finch, then new to science, Montifringilla ruficollis; Fregilus pyrrhocorax, Cinclus sordidus and Accentor rubeculoides. The horned lark, Otocoris, was first found by Elwes, who shot three specimens close to the Kongia Lama pass, at a height of 15,000 feet; it was thus named after him. Mr. Blanford and Elwes were met at the frontier by the Tibetan governor, who presented them with three fresh skins of the wild sheep, Ovis ammon, and the Tibetan deer, Procapra picticaudata, and some live sand-grouse, while lamenting, as a Buddhist, the sin that they had committed in shooting birds. The plateau was desolate and afforded no views into Tibet. The travellers therefore, after spending a day with the Suba, marched south again, collecting as they went, and a fortnight later reached their
On returning to Darjeeling I estimated that during the journey in Sikkim I had ascended, on foot, something like 127,000 feet in all; and as much of this was done in a high temperature over an extremely bad path, while during the latter part of the time I was weakened by the leech bites, of which I bear traces to this day, I was very glad of a rest.
I had plenty to do in getting my collections dried and packed to send home, and found that I had nearly 1,000 specimens of birds, including 330 species, of which three proved to be new. Besides these I had about 200 species of ferns, among which three or four were new, notwith¬ standing the very much larger collection that had been made on the same ground by Hooker.
I had also a large number of butterflies, which were examined by Mr. Atkinson, of the Bengal Civil Service, who had collected for some years at Darjeeling, and who found among them a Parnassius taken at nearly 18,000 feet, which I afterwards described as P. epaphus var. Sikkimensis.
I found that a good many of the butterflies which I had collected in June and July had become damaged by damp, but there remained a great number of fine specimens, which I gave to Mr. F. D. Godman on my return home. They are now incorporated with the British Museum collection.
Between the 23rd and 27th October there was a continuous rain amount​ing to twenty inches, which is very unusual so late in the season, and a good deal of this fell on the high mountains which we had just left, in the form of snow, covering the Kanchenjunga range down to 17,000 feet and lying lower on the Cho-là range. On the 29th October I packed off all my things to Calcutta by the Government bullock train and said good-bye to all my friends with much regret. I rode down to Siligori, where I found the grass fourteen to twenty feet high and a good deal of the country flooded.
Colonel Haughton had sent an elephant from Jelpigori, as the country was impassable for any other animal on account of the flooded state of the rivers, and it took me the whole night to get over the distance in a very uncomfortable manner, as I became so sleepy that I had to tie myself on the pad for fear of falling off into the water, On this night I probably got the germs of a fever which attacked me afterwards in Assam, where I accompanied Colonel Haughton during his tour of inspection, and which almost completely destroyed my memory of the events which happened during that tour. I find in my collection a pair of eggs of the white-headed eagle, Haliætus leucocephalus, marked u "H.J.E. ipse," but though my memory of similar events is usually very clear, I have not the least re¬ collection of how or where I got them.
When I returned to Calcutta I met the late A.O. Hume, who was then the premier ornithologist in India, and who was very anxious to go through and describe my new birds, I allowed him to borrow a few, which I never saw again until the whole of his immense collection was presented to the British Museum, Among them was a new species of Crake, of which Hume says in Hume and Marshall's Game Birds of India, ii,: "Elwes's Crake, Porzana bicolor Walden. At the close of 1870 I picked out a bird of this species from a collection made in Sikkim by Captain H.J. Elwes, Unfortunately the box containing this and other valuable skins from Assam was mislaid and never turned up for years, when it was found among other property in the Agra Custom House. In the meantime I received a second specimen from Mr, Mandelli and at once described it, naming it after its discoverer, I sent the description to the Ibis, but the editor, instead of publishing it, put it aside for seven or eight months, and only remembered it when Lord Walden, who in the meantime had received a third specimen, described it (Stray Feathers, iii., p. 283, 1875), as Porzana bicolor. Thus the name of the real discoverer is lost sight of, and it is only in the trivial name that this can now be preserved. Little is known of its distribution. Elsewhere it has only been met with in the Khasia hills, where Godwin Austen was the first to find it. It has been classed by Blanford in Fauna of British India, iv., p. 171, in the genus Amaurornis.”
Though at the time we started I had no previous acquaintance with Blanford, whose education and previous associations had been very different, and whose ideas were at that time very different in many points from my own, I found him an admirable travelling companion and never had a word of dissension during the ten weeks during which we lived together, under very trying conditions, in a very small tent. I renewed the friendship that we then formed when he retired from the service afterwards ​and lived in England. His wide experience and good judgment, as well as his great scientific knowledge, which gained him the fellowship of the Royal Society, were of the greatest advantage to me in my subsequent studies.
We found that Hooker’s Himalayan Journals, which had been published twenty-two years previously, was an admirable guide both as to the geography of the country, which he had mapped, and as to the botany and general features. I have used this book on four subsequent occasions with the greatest pleasure and profit, for though Hooker was primarily a botanist, he was an accurate observer and describer of everything of interest, unsurpassed by any naturalist whose works I have studied. His memory remained fresh among all the natives with whom he came in contact; and he left behind him a reputation which any man might envy. No one who has not followed his tracks in the early days when Sikkim had no made paths can realise his determination, industry and courage.
On his return from India Elwes was married, in April, 1871, at Elmore, Gloucester, to Miss M.S. Lowndes, second daughter of the late Mr. W.C. Lowndes, of Brightwell Park, Oxfordshire. He went to live at Miserden, a few miles to the west of his old home, in 1872, and devoted much of his leisure to the working up of his Sikkim collections. Reading widely for this purpose, he found that current theories did not fit his own observations in the field. In an elaborate paper, On the Geographical Distribution of Asiatic Birds, which he read before the Zoological Society on June 17, 1873, he defined what, in his view, were the true natural divisions for the avifauna of Asia. He showed, in particular, that the Himalo-Chinese sub-region, as he termed it, was a distinct and homogeneous tract extending from Kashmir right along the great Himalayan chain and across Southern China to the Pacific. While much of the detailed exposition is neces¬ sarily superseded, the paper still deserves to be referred to, as exemplifying Elwes’s fresh and vigorous intellect and his grasp of scientific principles.
Elwes also published in the Ibis a careful memoir, “A Revision of the Genus Henicurus” a beautiful and peculiar genus of birds—somewhat resembling the Wagtail—which is specially characteristic of the wooded gorges of mountains in the Himalo-Chinese region. But he did not continue these detailed researches.
When I settled down after my marriage (he wrote in later years), I found that it became difficult, if not impossible, to continue my ornithological work without constant access to the British Museum and to London libraries. As I had neither the means nor the desire to spend so much time in London as this would have entailed, I gradually ceased to pursue my ornithological studies and parted with my Indian collection.
But I did not lose my interest in the subject, and though I have no claim to be considered an up-to-date ornithologist, I have kept in touch with my older bird-loving friends at the meetings of the British Ornitho¬ logists’ Union, and have formed new friendships among the younger generation. And I may add that these early associations have been of immense value to my work in other branches of Natural History, on account of the exactitude and attention to detail in which the ornitho¬ logists have set so high a standard to other naturalists.
The only other journey I ever undertook with purely ornitho¬ logical objects was in company with the late Mr. Seebohm in Denmark. ​An account of this was published in the Ibis, for we were fortunate in having Mr. Benson, a well-known ornithologist of Copenhagen as our guide, and spent a very pleasant time with him and his assistant in Jutland. An isolated forest lying in the middle of a great tract of moorland was one of our best localities. Here Goshawks and Kites were common. The Goshawk makes a very large nest of beech twigs lined with lichen, and lays three or four green eggs, which are unlike those of any other bird of prey.
In another forest called Roldskov we were personally conducted by a very jolly old Danish forester on an Iceland pony to the eyries of the Black Stork, which, unlike its cousin the White Stork, is a very shy bird, and breeds in remote forests on trees. I took two nests myself on May 9th, one of which was in an old Sea Eagle’s nest thirty feet from the ground.
Perhaps the most interesting place to which we went in Denmark was a large extent of marsh and saltings near Tarm, in the Ringkjoping fiord. Here were abundance of Ruffs and Reeves, Pintail and Garganey. We were, however, too early for the Great Snipe, which breeds here in some numbers. Other good finds during my Danish trip were the nests of the Turnstone, the Red-necked Grebe and the Marsh Harrier. On our way home we stayed a few days in Holland, and visited the Horster Meer near Amsterdam, where the Spoonbill and Purple Heron breed in a strictly protected colony.