Darjeeling is a town in the Indian state of West Bengal.The name Darjeeling is a composition of 'dorje' meaning 'thunderbolt' and 'ling' meaning 'place' ... 'the Land of Thunderbolt'. The Nepalese had marched till the east of Sikkim in 1780 as far as Tista river. Due to a disagreement with Nepal, the British declared war against Nepal at the end of 1813. In 1816 by a treaty signed at Seagoulie, Nepal ceded 4000 sq. miles of territory and by the treaty of Titalya in 1817 the Rajah (king) of Sikkim was reinstated.
The town, itself, laid out by Lord Napier of the Royal Engineers, is at an altitude of 2,134 m (7,000 ft). Moving up the hills, one is greeted by smiling tea gardens, changing to firs, pines and fast moving torrents, surrounded by 4,000 types of flowering plants and 300 varieties of ferns, including the rare tree fern.
Bounded on the north by Sikkim, Darjeeling is flanked by Bhutan on the East and Nepal on the West. Standing on a narrow ridge jutting out in a vast basin in the heart of the Himalayas, and enclosed by mountains, the view is more open to the north and north-east as where the eye traverses range after ascending range of hills behind the cultivated slopes of closer hills till the rising waves mingle with the distant snowy griddle of rugged peaks. Obscure in the early dawn, the peaks begin to inch towards pink, then slowly, mauve, orange, till, when the sun pierces the horizon, they finally, burst aflame. |
