ch. viii.] Floiver-gloiy. 181 



through which streams flow near the great water-sheds 

 inland. Considerable damage results to the cultivated 

 patches on the hills from these sudden rains; and 

 formidable land-slips not unfrequently take place on the 

 steep hills near the rivers. Cultivation near the capital 

 is, however, of a poor description, compared with the 

 plains of Menkabong, Tawaran, and Tampassuk, or the 

 hills further inland. 



A lover of nature who sees a tropical country for the 

 first time, cannot help but enjoy the bright light and 

 heat, the vegetable glories of flower, fruit, and leaf, 

 called forth by the rain and sunshine — of a clime where 

 winter is unknown. And } T et, with all the sunshine and 

 showers, the tropical blossoms are in a way aristocratic 

 and exclusive, and never mingle socially in bosky masses, 

 as do our own wildings ; and it is not possible to name 

 half-a-dozen of them that could at all compare with the 

 blue-bells, or heather, the buttercups, primroses, forget- 

 me-nots, anemones, violets, and rosy lychnis of our own 

 cool moist woods and pastures. 



During a year's rambles in one of the richest and most 

 fertile of tropical islands, I saw nothing really fresh and 

 spring-like; nothing like the "green and gold" of daffodils, 

 aud the tender young grass of April, or the royal glory 

 of a summer iris, or an autumnal crocus on its mossy 

 bed. This much is ever lacking in the forest primaeval ; 

 and even in gardens — Eastern gardens — beautiful as they 

 undoubtedly are in many ways, the sameness, the cloying 

 degree of permanency observable in the forests, becomes 

 intensified, and so still more unsatisfjing. The plants 

 seem always to present the same aspect ; and although 

 most of them are at their best when revived by the rains, 

 just after the dry season, yet the charm of freshness is 

 destroyed by the number of evergreens everywhere, and 



