402 NOTES OF A BOTANICAL TOUR 
basket of provisions and sleeping coats, with other heavy 
articles, not indispensable to the objects of our ascent. 
Among these, I included my collecting-box, which had be- 
come rather weighty, and the contents of which were more 
likely to be injured by the burning rays of a cloudless sun, 
than to be increased from the dry and barren rocks still 
above us. 
On again getting into motion, we slowly toiled up the 
shoulders of the mountain, and soon left below us all shrubs 
except Calluna vulgaris, which, with Thymus cespititius, 
composed the principal part of the vegetation. Considerable 
spaces of bare rock, or of loose cinder-like stones, inter- 
vened among the portions of surface covered by the prostrate 
Calluna ; and as these bare spaces gradually increased in 
extent and frequency, with the increasing altitude, almost 
the whole surface at length appeared to be destitute of vege- 
tation. Only two species of flowering plants were observed 
within or below that region ; the one being Polygala vulgaris, 
of which only a single root was seen on the Peak, and none 
elsewhere in the islands which I visited; the other was à 
species of Agrostis, possibly a form of A. vulgaris, after- 
wards picked just by the summit of the Peak, and nearly 
parched with drought. 
The task of ascending this uppermost portion of the Peak 
was exceedingly toilsome. In many places the surface was 
covered by loose pieces of lava, which, when set in motion 
over each other by our feet, slipped rapidly down the steep 
declivity, endangering the freedom of our ancles and the 
integrity of our bones. The dark and bare rocks also were 
sensibly hot to the hands and feet, even felt through our 
shoes, under the influence of the mid-day sun, shining in 
full splendour through a dry and rarified atmosphere. Not 
a drop of water was found above the place at which we 
had rested to lunch; and all the portable stores that we had 
carried higher, consisted of a bottle of eyder and a very 
small flask of whisky, for we had expected to find water, if 
not snow, near the summit. We had soon cause enough 
