LINN.^US. 209 



of white clouds rising from the horizon. Arriving 

 in the evening at a place named Riomitis^ he 

 saw the sun set apparently on the summit of a 

 high mountain, — a spectacle which, although com- 

 mon enough in hilly countries, was so new to him as 

 to excite his utmost surprise, and to induce him to 

 exclaim, '" O Lord, how wonderful are thy works !" 

 Towards the close of day, July 6, accompanied by 

 a native, who acted as his servant and interpreter, 

 he ascended the heights of Wallavari, the first of 

 the range. Here he found himself as in a new 

 world. The forests had disappeared ; mountains 

 upon mountains, covered with snow, presented 

 themselves on all sides; no traces of human ha- 

 bitations were to be seen ; the plants of the lower 

 districts had ceased, and a vegetation of a peculiar 

 kind occupied their place, presenting such a profu- 

 sion of new forms to the delighted eye of the natu- 

 ralist, that he was overcome with astonishment. He 

 observed the silken-leaved alpine lady's-mantle, the 

 deep-green sibbaldia, the little purple-flowered aza- 

 lea, the diapensia lapponica, the beautiful saxifraga 

 stellaris, rivularis, and oppositifolia, the succulent 

 rose- root, the red lychnis, several ranunculi, and a 

 variety of other species, most of which are found to- 

 wards the summits of our own Grampians. The 

 more elevated parts were composed of slaty rocks ; 

 and from the snow with which they were covered 

 the water was running in copious streams. He 

 caught a young ptarmigan, upon which the parent 

 bird ran so close to him that he might have taken 

 her also. '' She kept continually jumping round 

 and round me," says he ; '' but I thought it a pity 

 to deprive the tender brood of their mother, neither 



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