ir.] SCENERY OF THE ISLAND. 33 



jpoUice verso, were, we know, always willing for the death of the 

 combatant; and a bright-eyed little maiden who, clad in the simple 

 garb of a cartridge-bag, used generally to accompany me in my 

 rambles, was invariably much disgusted when I refused to shoot 

 some bird of which I already had a sufl&cient number of specimens. 

 If the truth were known I daresay some of these merry little 

 urchins had seen bigger game bite the dust. I recollect seeing 

 one whose only garment was one of the razor-edged 2^cirangs, 

 attached to his waist by a belt of twisted cotton. 



One of our favourite excursions was towards the foot of Buat 

 Tulipan, to the west of Meunbun. It is a cone of rather over 

 2000 feet, and is cultivated in patches almost to the sununit, for it 

 has long been extinct, and neither it nor its fellows trouble the 

 island even with an earthquake. Such diversity of scenery as Sulu 

 affords is seldom seen in a tropical island. The old jungle has 

 been for the most part cleared away, but long, dark patches of it 

 still exist in the small gullies, or cover the sides of the mountains. 

 Nearly everywhere the eye is greeted by what an auctioneer would 

 describe as " an extensive and park-like view." If we stand on one 

 of the many hills which tend to make the island look far larger 

 than it really is, we see before us a stretch of hill and dale covered 

 with bright green grass, and dotted with little spinneys or solitary, 

 well-grown trees, — just such a view, indeed, as one might get from 

 a country-house in England, were it not for the suspiciously sharp 

 cone of some volcano cropping up on the horizon. Here and 

 there, where the soil has been freshly turned by the rude wooden 

 ploughs employed by the natives, it seems as if some huge ruddy- 

 coloured blanket had been spread out in the sun to dry. Few huts 

 are to be seen. Most of them are buried in little groves of cocos, 

 or amid the dark foliage of the durian or Artocarpus, and the 

 " warm blue breathings of the hidden hearth " alone reveal their 

 presence. In these open glades there is but little bird-life, but 

 in the other localities we had for many days no difficulty in 

 procuring specimens. Perhaps the commonest, or at least the 

 VOL. 11. D 



