XII. 

 ON THE SAND-REEF AND MOUNTAIN. 



WE have seen that with the continual destruction 

 going on in the forest there is ample scope for 

 development. On the sand-reef or mourie, how- 

 ever, this is not so patent, and we should therefore 

 expect to find a more primitive flora in such 

 places. Again, when we get to the mountain 

 region of the interior, the plants will probably be 

 of still more archaic types. Standing as these do 

 high above the point reached by the flood, they 

 have one element the less to contend with, and 

 are therefore all the better enabled to cope with 

 the disabilities peculiar to their position. 



The mourie was, as we have said, the sea- shore 

 of some past age, before the alluvion, on which 

 the plantations now stand, was in existence. It 

 consists of reefs rising to a height of about a 

 hundred feet, with gullies and slopes, sometimes 



narrowed to a ridge, at others broadening out 



228 



