470 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



forbidding caves, and traversed by cbasms many feet in 

 width and to the sight reaching down to unfathomable depths. 

 In front of one of these caves an aged fig-tree, adding its 

 awesome effect, had dropped its tendrils and wonnd its roots 

 into every crevice in weird and gruesome shapes. The place 

 was just such as would overawe the timid and superstitious 

 native mind, and I was not surprised to see that there were 

 nearly as many Lull houses as dwellings, and that before the 

 door of the caves stood a LuU stone on which to propitiate 

 the spirits that haunted their gloomy recesses. The whole 

 summit of the mountain looked as if it had been shattered 



F 



to its very foundation by some gigantic convulsion of nature. 

 The natives told me that earthquakes, which were the result 

 of i^laromak nodding and lettinir the world slide off the 



o " o 



straight for a moment, were frequent and severe. 



Here I made some most curious, interesting, and very rare 

 additions to my herbarium ; the most attractive an epidendric 

 orchid, and a beautiful species of passion-flower which overran 

 with its bright star-like blossoms the spiny vegetation I have 

 mentioned; while the rarest was a curious aroid, Remusafia 



vivipara growing in soilless cracks in tlie calcareous rocks, 

 Avhose seeds, as its name implies, germinate in their capsules 

 before dropping ; and the most annoying a shrub with intensely 



prickly foliage^ called by the people there SilatiJc—a plant 

 much dreaded by them ; for when my face A\as stung badly, 

 by having come in contact with its leaves, they exhibited 

 great concern especially for my eyes, and conducted me away 

 from it. I tried by rubbing several succulent leaves on the 

 affected part to' allay the severe smarting, till a little urchin 

 who was following me, after shaking his head in the most 

 signiiicunt way to say that they were no good, proceeded to 

 pound down some of the calcareous rock into a fine powder, 

 whicli he brought to me to rub into the wounds. The applica- 

 tion was, if not curative, very cooling, but the pain did not 

 subside for a long time. After I had left the place I learned 

 that it is the juice from this tree that is applied to the tips of 

 their arrows as a poison. Among the few butterflies I obtained 

 I netted, AAith a heart palpitating with pleasure, the lovely 

 CefJiosm lamarJcu, whose azure wings had tantalised me by flying 



along the front of the inaccessible cliffs of the river bed below. 



