108 A NATUFxALISrS WANDEHIXGS 



After resting a day in Banclong I proceeded to my destina- 

 tion, some thirty miles farther to the south. Per fifteen miles 

 of the way it was possible to drive in a spring cart, which I 

 hired in the town ; but the rest of the road, which rises to 4500 

 feet, is very steep, and had to be accomplished on horseback. 



The road in the lower districts, shaded at short intervals by 

 leafy Hibiscus trees, passed between hedges of bright yellow- 

 purple- and red-flowering Lantana ; higher up broad patches 

 of pink balsam (Impatiens)^ shady AlhizziaSj purple Bin- 

 tiuo {Lagerstrmmia)j tall tree-ferns and a shrubby species 

 of Cassia bearing large trosses of bright golden flowers, were 

 met with. A little higher a species of Datura, with broad 

 leaves and large white trumpet-shaped flowers, suddenly 

 became abundant. Being utilised by the natives as boundary 

 hedges for their coffee-gardens, it formed by the size and 

 abundance of its flowers a marked feature of the vegetation. 



Five or six hours of slow ascent brought us at last to Pen- 

 gelengan, a small village lying at an elevation of 4500 feet 

 above the sea, on an undulating plateau formed by the inner 

 slopes of the Malawar, "Wayang and Tilu mountains, whose 

 summits range from 6000 to 7500 feet, and at several points 

 command a view of the South Indian Ocean. On the out- 

 skirts of the vilhige was a comfortable and convenient Govern- 

 ment bungalow, in which visitors to this rather out-of-the-way 

 spot could, with the permission of the Resident (always wil- 

 lingly granted), be accommodated for a time. Here I was in 

 the centre of one of the great Government coffee districts, and 

 in the vicinity of its cinchona plantations on the slopes of the 

 surrounding? mountains. 



One of my first visits was paid to the ' Bark ' gardens in order 

 to see in a living state these famous trees, and especially that 

 species with cream-coloured flowers, the Cinchona Ledgeriana, 

 which had attained so great a celebrity, and could in 1880 

 be seen, excepting in our Himalayan gardens, almost nowhere 

 else but in the Dutch plantations. It is now little more 

 than thirty years since the Netherlands Indian Government 

 began to cultivate cinchona. Their first seed was brought 

 by Haskarl, of the Botanical Gardens in Buitenzorg, who 

 had been deputed by the then Colonial Minister to visit 

 Peru to see the tree in its native forests and brimr homo 



