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Then suddenly comes dawn. The slow train stutters and stops. One is still an insect on the infernal 
plain, but there is a touch of coolness in the air which is not wholly the chill of death. The sticky 
sweat on one's body begins to evaporate and one's spirit to revive. There is a call to Chota Hazri. 
One steps out of the carriage. Good God! 
Not many miles away across the level to the east rise thickly wooded slopes, a confused tangle both 
of hills (as it seems) and of trees, and behind them again, still higher heights of misty purple and 
green. And then --- good God! Is it a mirage? Is it a phantom of hope created by courage from the 
chaos of nightmare? For there, above the highest hills, at an angle for which even one's experience 
of Chogo Ri has not prepared me, there stands the mass of Kangchenjunga, faint rose, faint blue, 
clear white, in the dawn. 
On reaching the foot of the hills, one transfers to a toy railway, which climbs the six thousand odd 
feet to Darjeeling by means of complicated curves and even loops. One ascends rapidly; the view 
constantly changes; one begins to appreciate the geology of the country as a whole. In the 
foreground the tropical vegetation is superbly thick and rich. One is so relieved by the change to 
cool shade and a suggestion of moisture that it comes as a shock to remember that this is the Teri, 
one of the most deadly fever districts in the world. By lunchtime the character of the vegetation is 
already markedly altered. The heavy tangle of the low country begins to give place to mountain 
sprightliness, but also the view tends to disappear altogether. One enters the region of almost 
eternal mist. The day is warm; and yet one is chilled to the bone. One is glad to come out on to an 
exposed ridge at Ghum and find the train begins to go down hill. It was the sign of the nearness of 
Darjeeling. I got off the train. With unfeigned satisfaction, I observed immediately that the current 
legends about the amazing powers of the coolies were true. The principal item of my baggage was a 
full-sized wardrobe trunk, but its contents were not mostly air, as usual with the American variety 
of this device. It contained comparatively few clothes; boots, axes, rifles, revolvers, scientific 
instruments and books made up the tale. I do not know how much it weighed, because the baggage 
clerk at Calcutta had asked me to bribe him with a rupee to declare it below the free allowance; 
but I should have been very sorry to have to do more than set it up on end unaided. A young girl 
coolie took it on her back, as I might have done a rucksack, and carried it at a good steady pace up 
the steep narrow paths to the Woodlands Hotel. I no longer disbelieved the story that a woman had 
once carried a full-sized upright piano all the way to Darjeeling from Siliguri on the plains. 
Darjeeling is a standing or rather steaming example of official ineptitude. 
{423} 
Sir Joseph Hooker, one of the few men of brains who have explored these parts, made an extended 
survey of the district and recommended Chumbi as a hill station. "Oh well," they say, "Darjeeling is 
forty miles nearer than Chumbi. It will do rather better." So Darjeeling it was. The difference 
happens to be that Chumbi has a rainfall of some forty inches a year; Darjeeling some two hundred 
odd. The town is perched on so steep a ridge that there is practically no level road anywhere and 
one gets from one house to another by staircases as steep as ladders. 
The whole town stinks of mildew. One's room is covered with mildew afresh every morning. 
India being the last hope of the unmarriageable shabby-genteel, Darjeeling is lousy with young 
ladies whose only idea of getting a husband is to practise the piano. In such a climate it is of course 
impossible to keep a piano in tune for five minutes, even if one could get it into that condition. The 
food itself is as mildewed as the maidens. The hotels extort outrageous rates which they attempt to 
justify by describing the meals in bad French. To be reminded of Paillard is adding insult to injury, 
for what the dishes are made of I never did discover. Almost the whole time I was there I was 
suffering from sore throat, arthritis, every plague that pertains to chronic soddenness. Do I like 
Darjeeling? I do not! 
On the other hand, I hound the heaven-born and the army as full of cordiality and comradeship as 
ever. As luck would have it, a new Worshipful Master was to be installed at the Lodge of 
Freemasons, so I went to the Jadugar-Khana and received a most brotherly welcome to the