98 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



that he invented an excuse to leave his work the next day, returning 

 triumphant with the flowers we had coveted. Oenoes, being of a 

 practical turn of mind, preferred collecting seeds rather than her- 

 barium specimens. I hope that some of his contributions to the Office 

 of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction may flourish. 



2. Several weeks were spent in intensive work at Loendoet, south 

 of the Asahan River. Several thousand acres of old jungle were 

 being felled, and I might profitably have spent all my time there. 

 Loendoet left a vivid memory of crashing jungle, the howling of 

 disconsolate monkeys surrounded by smoke and crackling fires that 

 followed the felling, the grotesque skeletons of charred trees that 

 remained after the first burning, the little infernos watched over by 

 Satanic Celestials during the second burning, when a hundred fires 

 kept the sky aglow all night. The burning was followed by turning 

 of the soil, and drainage of the swamps. Not a plant or animal re- 

 mained. My day's routine was to clamber through unbelievable tan- 

 gles of treetops and interwoven vines, many of them fish-hooked 

 ratans, sometimes 20 or 30 feet above the ground. Often it rained, 

 or the sun was scorching, but the wreckage never lost its interest. 

 It was sad to see things dying that can never be replaced. My chief 

 regret was for a magnificent Dracaena two feet in diameter. Many 

 of the species were never seen in flower or fruit and must remain 

 unrecorded. 



3. I botanized hurriedly through the back of Asahan up over the 

 mountains to Toba. This gave me a superficial idea of the floral 

 changes as one ascends to the high plateau and the mountains from 

 the low districts. The waterfalls of the Asahan, however insig- 

 nificant they might seem in a paper comparison with the giant 

 Niagara, are nevertheless sublime. No sight surpasses the plunge of 

 the Asahan into a perfect bowl at the Sampoeran Harimo. This fall 

 is at the head of the idyllic horseshoe valley of Tangga. Near the 

 foot of the Tiger Fall I crossed the boiling Asahan on a single strand 

 of ratan, ignominiously pulled in a basket, whereas the natives go 

 hand over hand with the agility of monkeys. Then up the face of 

 the valley, where the path becomes a series of ladders up the clififs, 

 and over the lalang plains of the ancient terrace to Toba. To stand 

 at the mountain rim of Toba and look down at the great lake, the 

 mysterious, almost-island Samosir, the emerald-green or golden rice 

 terraces, the villages in their groves of trees and bamboo — nothing 

 could be more entrancing. And then the mountains — each one 

 presenting untouched botanical opportunities. The sacred Dolok 



