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On the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth, there were short spells of respite; otherwise, from the 
eighth to the twentieth it never slackened and outside the dak baghlas I was not dry, even partially, 
for a single second. 
The leeches of the district are a most peculiar tribe. For some reason, they can only live within a 
very well-defined belt. Thus, I never saw a leech at Darjeeling, while at Lebong, some five hundred 
feet lower, they are a pest. The Terai is the haunt of some of the most tenacious of animals, but 
the leech has cleared them out completely. A single leech will kill a pony. It works its way up into 
the nostril and the pony simply bleeds to death. Hence the Anglo-Indian proverb. "A jok's a jok 
[Hindustani for leech] but a jok up your nose is no jok." 
I witnessed a remarkable sight on the road to Chabanjong, which was here 
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a paka rasta (that is, a road made by engineers as opposed to kacha rasta, a track made by habit or 
at most by very primitive methods) wide enough for carts to pass. I had squatted near the middle of 
the road as being the least damp and leech-infested spot available and got a pipe going by keeping 
the bowl under my waterproof. I lazily watched a leech wriggling up a blade of tall grass about 
fifteen inches high and smiled superiorily at its fatuity --- though when I come to think of it, my own 
expedition was morally parallel; but the leech was not such a fool as I thought. Arrived at the top, 
it began to set the stalk swinging to and fro; after a few seconds it suddenly let go and flew clean 
across the road. The intelligence of and ingenuity of the creature struck me as astonishing. (Legless 
animals are practically helpless on open ground. One can walk up to a king cobra on a smooth road 
and set one's heel on its head, as prophesied in Genesis, without much danger of being struck, and 
though it sees you coming, it is quite unable to escape. But give the same snake a little grass to 
flagellate and the eye can hardly follow its motion. It goes like a snipe.) 
Coming back over the same ridge, I was on an open hillside running fast. It was raining downwards 
instead of upwards for once, and that but slightly. I heard a little noise, as if something had fallen 
on my hat, and took no notice. A few moments later I found that my hand was wet with blood, 
running fast, and looking down I saw a leech on the back of it. How it managed to fall from the sky I 
don't know. I have seen leeches up to seven inches long; and there seems hardly any limit to the 
amount of blood they can assimilate. I heard of a gorged leech weighing nearly two pounds and I 
believe it without effort. 
Another strange sight in these parts is the sheep. Tartarin, still proud of his haggis, invented 
wonderful theories to explain the fact that they are muzzled. However, they are not mountons 
enragés; the muzzle is to prevent them from poisoning themselves with wild aconite. 
The scenery along the while of his ridge is extraordinarily grand, so far as the mist permits one to 
see anything. Some of the Himalayan trees are superb. But the prevailing vegetation is the 
rhododendron, a plant which has little in common with its English cousin. It grows to a height of 
fifteen feet or more and the stems are often as thick as a man's thigh. It grows in unbroken forests 
and the worst Mexican chaparral I ever saw was not worse to have to cut one's way through. 
At Chabanjong the road stops and I sent back my horse. Thence a shepherd's track leads along the 
ridge. One the whole it was very good walking. 
We had already found trouble with our own coolies. To begin with, the police had caught me up 
atJorpakri and arrested one of them for some petty offence --- he joined us for more reasons than 
one. Six of the men deserted in the early part of the march. I was a small percentage and they had 
evidently 
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