Darjeeling

Darjeeling (Dārjīling), a sanitary station in the Lower Himalayas, and administrative headquarters of Darjeeling district, is situated on a narrow ridge, at an elevation of 7167 feet above the sea. It has a fine sanatorium (1883), a good water-supply, and is an increasingly popular summer-resort for visitors and invalids. The fashionable month is October, after the rains, when the clear atmosphere shows at its best a view of unsurpassed extent and grandeur. Pop. 7018.—DARJEELING is the most northerly district of the Kuch Behar division of Bengal, divided from Independent Sikkim by a series of rivers and mountain-torrents. Area, 1234 sq. m. Pop. (1872) 94,712; (1895) 250,000, mostly Nepalis and other aboriginal or semi-aboriginal tribes, attracted to the district by the increased demand for labour on the railway and in the tea-gardens. With a surface divided between the Lower Himalayas and the marshy sub-montane strip, the scenery of the district is magnificent; up to 12,000 feet the ridges are clothed with valuable forests, and on the higher slopes the rhododendron grows in gorgeous luxuriance. The climate is excessively humid, but not unhealthy. Food-crops are raised, and there is a trade with Tibet and Nepal; but the staple industry is the cultivation of tea, of which the yield steadily increased in 1875-95. The district suffered from earthquake in 1899.