Mountain Paths. 243 



might at any time set in, I might be prevented from return- 

 ing by the flooding of the river. I therefore devoted myself 

 during the short time of my visit to obtaining what knowledge 

 I could of the natural productions of the place. 



The narrow chasms produced several fine insects quite new 

 to me, and one new bii'd, the curious Phlaegenas tristigraata, 

 a large ground-pigeon with yellow breast and crown and pur- 

 ple neck. This rugged path is the highway from Maros to 

 the Bugis country beyond the mountains. During the rainy 

 season it is quite impassable, the river filhng its bed and 

 rushing between perpendicular cliffs many hundred feet high. 

 Even at the time of my visit it was most precipitous and fa- 

 tiguing, yet women and children came over it daily, and men 

 carying heavy loads of palm-sugar of very little value. It 

 was along the path between the lower and the upper falls, and 

 about the margin of the upper pool, that I found most insects. 

 The large semi-transparent butterfly (Idea tondana) flew lazily 

 along by dozens, and it was here that I at length obtained an 

 insect which I hnd hoped but hardly expected to meet with — 

 the magnificent Papilio androcles, one of the largest and rarest 

 known swallow-tailed butterflies. During my four days' stay 

 at the falls I was so fortunate as to obtain six good specimens. 

 As this beautiful creature flies, the long white tails flicker like 

 streamers, and when settled on the beach it carries them raised 

 upward, as if to preserve them from injury. It is scarce even 

 here, as I did not see more than a dozen specimens in all, and 

 had to foUow many of them up and down the river's bank re- 

 peatedly before I succeeded in their capture. When the sun 

 shone hottest about noon, the moist beach of the pool below 

 the upper fall presented a beautiful sight, being dotted with 

 groups of gay butterflies — orange, yellow, white, blue, and 

 green — which on being disturbed rose into the air by hun- 

 dreds, forming clouds of variegated colors. 



Such gorges, chasms, and precipices as here abound, I have 

 nowhere seen in the Archipelago. A sloping surface is scarce- 

 ly anywhere to be found, huge walls and rugged masses of 

 rock terminating all the mountains and inclosing the valleys. 

 In many parts there are vertical or even overhanging precipi- 

 ces five or six hundred feet high, yet completely clothed with 

 a tapestry of vegetation. Ferns, Pandanacece, shrubs, creep- 



