LETTERS FROM JAMES MOTLEY, ESQ. 81 
Peaches, though they have a pretty good appearance, are said to be 
quite tasteless ; the fact is, the trees get no rest, so as to ripen any true 
bearing-wood. The Apples grow with long and ever-lengthening shoots, 
more like Osiers than their brethren in Europe. At this place, which 
is in the midst of the plateau of the Preangu district, about 4000 
feet above the sea, you have quite an Italian climate, and it is cold 
enough at night to make a blanket pleasant. It takes its name, 
Chepanas, or “hot river," from a warm spring close to the Governor's 
house, where there is a convenient bath, very pleasant after a hard 
day's walking. "There is a small botanie garden here also, where they 
have a good many Japanese plants; but the most remarkable objects 
are two splendid specimens of the Norfolk Island Araucaria, perhaps 
sixty feet high, young trees, but in a state of health and vigour which 
promises well for the future. 
From Chepanas I made my last and crowning trip to the top of the 
Pangerongo Mountain, about 10,500 feet. I cannot pretend to tell you 
all the plants I saw ; but you, who have never experienced the sensation, 
cannot imagine how odd it was, all at once to get again among forms 
such as two species of Viola, three Ranunculi, three Impatiens, Primula, 
Hypericum, Swertia, Convallaria, Vaccinium, Rhododendron, Gnaphalium, 
Polygonum, Digitalis (2), Lonicera, Plantago, Artemisia, Lobelia, Oxalis, 
Quercus, Taxus, and about a dozen species of Rubus, all beautiful plants. 
Primula imperialis only grows near the summit ; it is a charming species, 
the leaves like P. vulgaris, with an interrupted verticillate spike, some- 
times three feet high, of golden flowers. Hypericum Javanicum is 
also a fine plant, with the shrubby habit of Z7. hircinum, but large 
solitary flowers like M. calycinum. Gnaphalium Javanicum is a woody 
shrub, about six feet high, very ornamental. Up among these plants, 
amid the Moss which hangs to the trees in masses as big as a man's 
body, are two fine parasitical Orchids, a Dendrobium with bright purple 
flowers, D. purpureum, and a little pseudobulbous plant with large - 
flowers like a Cymbidium; and yet these plants, often exposed to — 
36—38? Fahr., we should perhaps put at home into an orehideous stove - 
at 85°, and then be surprised when they died. I was much astonished - 
at the distribution of plants of this tribe. I have often been puzzled — 
why I did not get more species at Labuan and in other steamy hot 
places down at the sea-level, where, I believe, most English botanists - 
would hope to find them; whereas at about 4000 feet, with a night - 
VOL. VII. - 
