MARKET DAY IN DARJEELING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 26

MARKET DAY IN DARJEELING

A Sunday in the market square at Darjeeling, framed by' the .mighty Himalayas, rewards the visitor with a scene out of medieval history, a scene that will be remembered long after the trip down to India's plains on the jittery little train of the DarjeelingHimalaya railroad is ended, writes George Brandt in the "New York Times." No part of the world is quite so rich and complex for the traveller as India, with its" age-old traditions, its welter of languages, its fabulous caste regulations and religious animosities. Here are dozens of native States, each with its own vast palaces and ancient fortresses, colourful folk-customs and special superstitions. But after one has journeyed thousands of miles throughout India, witnessing the medieval tapestry of fantastic wealth and abject poverty, it is pleasant indeed to escape to Darjeeling, the famous hill-station close to the snow of the Himalayas. Darjeeling itself is but some 7000 feet above sea level, which is practically sea level in this part of the world. It is a very popular Jiill-station for British officials parwoiled by the

summer heat of India's endless plains. In addition, it is the market for the exceedingly expensive tea cultivated in the plantations that rise terrace upon' terrace against the mountain sides all around Darjeeling. The usual approach is by the East Bengal Railroad, a smooth overnight ride across vast plains from Calcutta to the terminus of the Darjeeling-Himalaya railroad,- then on a pigmy train that climbs prodigiously up grades, through grass twenty-five feet high—where dwell tigers, rhihoceras, buffalo, sambar, bear, wild hog, and deer—to the forests of the foothills, and on through them and up and up to Darjeeling. Eventually, after herculean puffing, the train rounds a curve and there is Darjeeling, and behind it a spectacular sight. The town itself recalls many in the Swiss Alps. Below the railroad, in the centre of Darjeeling, is an enclosed square, where on Sundays a huge bazaar is held . There is nothing like this bazaar anywhere else in, India. Natives from Tibet, Bhutan,! Nepal, and upper India trek in fori weeks —carrying 300 or 400 pounds of produce, of one kind of another, to display in Darjeeling's famous market