The Argus Pheasant — Lost Papers. 45 



forests he had never yet shot one, and had never even seen 

 one except after it had been caught. The bird is so exceed- 

 ingly shy and wary, and runs along the ground in the 

 densest parts of the forest so quickly, that it is impossible to 

 get near it ; and its sober colors and rich eye-like spots, which 

 are so ornamental when seen in a museum, must harmonize 

 well with the dead leaves among which it dwells, and render 

 it very inconspicuous. All the specimens sold in Malacca 

 are caught in snares, and my informant, though he had shot 

 none, had snared plenty. 



The tiger and rhinoceros are still found here, and a few 

 years ago elephants abounded, but they have lately all dis- 

 appeared. We found some heaps of dung, which seemed to 

 be that of elephants, and some tracks of the rhinoceros, but 

 saw none of the animals. We, however, kept a fire up all 

 night in case any of these creatures should visit us, and two 

 of our men declared that they did one day see a rhinoceros. 

 When our rice was finished, and our boxes full of specimens, 

 we returned to Ayer-panas, and a few days afterwai-d went 

 on to Malacca, and thence to Singapore. Mount Ophir has 

 quite a reputation for fever, and all our friends were aston- 

 ished at our recklessness in staying so long at its foot ; but 

 we none of us sufiered in the least, and I shall ever look back 

 with pleasure to my trip, as being my first mtroduction to 

 mountain scenery in the Eastern tropics. 



The meagreness and brevity of the sketch I have here giv- 

 en of my visit to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula is due 

 to my having trusted chiefly to some private letters and a 

 note-book, which were lost, and to a paper on Malacca and 

 Mount Ophir which was sent to the Royal Geographical So- 

 ciety, but which was neither read nor printed, owing to press 

 of matter at the end of a session, and the MSS. of which can 

 not now be found. I the less regret this, however, as so 

 many works have been written on these pai-ts ; and I always 

 intended to pass lightly over my travels in the western and 

 better known portions of the Archipelago, in order to devote 

 more space to the remoter districts, about which hardly any 

 thing has been written in the English language. 



