LETTERS FROM JAMES MOTLEY, ESQ. 83 
more sublime than the bare walls of lava and banks of white pumice 
furrowed by the rains into deep ravines, and the wreaths of blue smoke 
curling up in the sunrise, with the dark primeval forest creeping up in 
places to the very edge of the abyss, or with countless dead grey branches, 
silently attesting how different the scene may sometimes be. If you 
add to this the huge masses of boiling clouds rolling over the flanks of 
the mountain, now hanging at the very edge of the crater, and then 
sweeping rapidly down to the plains, the strange ashy aspect of the 
nearest trees covered with pale lichens, and the bright blue tropical 
cloudless sky and rising sun, you may perhaps imagine something of 
a scene which I can neither describe nor forget. I felt inclined to 
shout for joy, and I never even thought of the cold until I tried to 
sketch, and found my hands so numb I could not hold a pencil. I did 
manage to get, however, an outline of the water. Coming down again 
was harder work than climbing up, and played the very deuce with my 
knees; but nevertheless, when I met Bennendyk half-way up, I was 
glad enough to turn back with him. We took a short walk that after- 
noon, to see a thicket of Rhododendron Javanicum in flower. The plant 
is now, I believe, in Europe; and if it grows as it does here, it is 
almost the finest plant in the gardens: its beautiful flame-coloured 
blossoms are in large bunches of twenty or more, and the colour is 
more dazzling than that of any flower I know. I saw also two other 
Rhododendra, R. rubriflorum, a beautiful scarlet, and R. album, in per- 
fection,—both very free flowerers, and very beautiful plants. 
"That night we remained in a small house on the mountains, and the 
next day went up another peak, and also to see some cataracts. Of 
these there were three falling at the head of a gorge, over a cliff some 
150 feet high. There was a fine supply of water, but in time of rain 
it must be immense, jndging from the quantity of stones and timber 
heaped below. The rocks are covered with Bartramia fontana, a white — 
Sphagnum, and a deep-red Hepaticous plant, and with great patches of 
the broad leaves of Gunnera, and a dark-green Urticaceous plant, which 
seemed to rejoice in the spray and foam. Large bushes of Acacia vol- 
canica, and a tall Saccharum, were scattered among damp stones co 
with Mosses and Hepatice. I gathered a curious Gyrophora i in fruit ona 
dead Fern trunk. The white Sphagnum I mentioned as abun an 
I saw on the course of one stream only, which rose in a ‘hot-water 
spring half-way up, where it was very abundant. Coming | back. i found 
