440 Scientific Travellers. 



diately below, a scattered irregular mass of hills, confined principally 

 to the western part of the island, covered with jungle, interspersed 

 with grass plains of more or less extent. To the eastward a broad 

 flat plain intersected with patches of jungle; and surrounding all, 

 lie the cultivated rice-fields with the different villages on their verge 

 nearest the sea, the coast of which to the westward is everywhere 

 strewed with broken and detached masses of rock jutting far out. 



In introducing to notice the more natural productions of the island, 

 in the vegetable kingdom, it may be well first to speak of the soil in 

 which they are found. 



This is with little exception of one character, a loose friable earth 

 of light yellow colour, having the general clay base much modified 

 with decayed vegetable matter, the angular fragments of soft sand- 

 stone having passed from a greenish into a dirty yellow colour, and 

 being in a state of rapid decomposition. 



The exceptions to this were found in a few spots to consist of a 

 soil bearing more of the character of mould. The above soil extends 

 throughout the interior parts of the island, embracing all the hills 

 higher and lower down to those flatter lands which have been noticed 

 as applicable for the extension of rice cultivation, and constitutes 

 that of the jungles, which are co-extensive with it. 



These in their general character are open, consisting much of de- 

 tached clumps of bamboo or of trees from 1 foot to 18 inches in dia- 

 meter, well separated below, but in their branches having creepers 

 thickly entwined. Throughout the lower jungles, open spaces, some 

 deserving the character of small plains, are of very frequent occur- 

 rence. On the higher hills the trees are closest of growth and largest 

 of size, but still clear of understufF. 



Timber of great size, and some of valuable quality, is to be found, 

 but it is confined to the very summits of the highest hills, and is 

 therefore partly inaccessible, nor would its amount ever remunerate 

 the labour of constructing roads for its transport. The soil in which 

 these grow is of the same nature as that described above ; but within 

 a few hundred feet of the summits, all of which are very steep, it is 

 piled up in the loosest possible manner. The stroke of an axe or dah 

 on an extensive hill- top would so shake it for a space of 150 yards 

 around, as to make observation in the quicksilver of an artificial ho- 

 rizon impossible. 



Precisely at the spot where this loose texture commences — com- 

 mences the growth of the large timber, increasing in size thence to 

 the summits, and from the trees not being deciduous (or at least not 

 so at the same season), a most marked line of separation is thus 

 traced out between these and the smaller leafless jungle below. 



The wood oil-tree was the most conspicuous in growth and size 

 of the larger trees of these summits. One was felled on the west 

 hill, which measured in diameter at the respective ends of a 60-feet 

 length, 4 feet 6 inches and 3 feet 6 inches ; and another is left stand- 

 ing as a mark, on the summit, which measures 21 feet 4 inches in 

 girt at 6 feet from the ground. The wood of this tree will not, I 



