40 WILD LIFE IN NORTH CANARA. 



beauty, was built on a cliff of red 

 laterite. This curious rock is rather 

 soft and cheese-like when first quarried, 

 but hardens rapidly when exposed to 

 the air ; it is full of the same sort of 

 holes as are to be found in gruyere, 

 but it makes very good building 

 material, and the walls of our house 

 were built of slabs quarried on the 

 spot. The whole cliff was full of 

 fissures and caves on its sea face, and 

 the various shrubs and trees which 

 grew about the house and grounds 

 seemed to root themselves readily, not- 

 withstanding the unpromising hardness 

 of the surface. 



Notable among the surrounding 

 shrubs was the nux vomica, which 

 yields the deadly strychnine; it is in 



