192 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



believe resides there, ascending to the highest accessible spot, 

 Avhere incense is offered and other ceremonies performed. 



A little farther on, as I neared the village of Lahat, the summit 

 of tlie volcano of the Dempo ^vhither I was bound, raised its 

 head in the distance. After resting for a couple of days in the 

 town, enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Van Houlen, the Resident 

 of the district, I pressed on north-westward. After a journey 

 of a few hours up the Lamatang valley I entered, on climbing 

 out of the gorge on to its high bank, a landscape with en- 

 tirely new' features, I looked out on what appeared to be an 

 immense w^hite sandy plain, w^hich in reality was the plateau 

 of the Passumah Lands, covered with grass, but with scarcely a 

 trace of a tree anywhere — one of the singular features of this 

 region, and one by no means common in the tropics. It is said 

 that fur at least 300 years there has been no forest here; but 

 that previously, howcA'er, there were trees which had been 

 destroyed by a great fire. That a conflagration should have 

 burned up such an immense tract, leaving no clumps or unin- 

 jured seeds of any kind in the soil to start a second crop of 

 arboreal vegetation, seems very doubtful. In Ceylon however, 

 in the midst of great forest regions, there occur tracts, marked 

 off with singular sharpness from the surrounding forest, in 

 which no trees are to be found. Perhaps the bareness of this 

 plateau may be the result of some such train of circumstances, 

 or perhaps it may ow^e its peculiarity to the effect of eruptions 

 of the overshadowing volcano, towards which the plateau slopes 

 gently upwards. 



At noon I reached the first of those singular gorges which 

 are another characteristic feature of the plateau. Its sides 

 descended precipitously to the bed of a small river which was 

 running in a narrow channel cut through the solid rock, on 

 which the marks of the former levels of its water were plainly 

 graved, and descended under a narrow bridge that spanned it 

 in a series of pretty cascades. A few miles farther, on taking 

 a sharp turn of the road, I suddenly found myself on the brink 

 of a precipice over whose edges I could dizzily see, more tbau 

 500 feet sheer below me, the foaming Endicat river spanned 

 by a picturesque roofed bridge. Till close on the edge of the 

 precipice it was impossible for the eye to detect the slightest 

 sign of a gorge ; it roamed over what seemed a nearly level 



♦. 



