C02 Mr. D. A. Bannerman on the 



whicli it must have possessed at one time. The steep 

 valleys must have looked extremely rich when clothed in 

 masses of tropical foliage, but now all is laid bare, and the 

 course of every stream can be traced. 



The island is remarkably well watered; streams of 

 sparkling clearness are found in nearly every valley. The 

 two big streams are the Papagaio and another corresponding 

 to it which flows down the other side of the mountain into 

 West Bay. 



On March the 4th, I left to make a camp on a high ridge- 

 like plateau close to the Peak. This ridge is very narrow 

 and falls down abruptly to the north, and to the south one 

 looks down into a steep valley, on the other side of which 

 rises the big hill covered with thick forest growth. By 

 my aneroid the height of the ridge is about 1800 feet. 



Looking to the north there is a splendid view over the 

 greater portion of the island,! should say at least two-thirds 

 of it. The whole of this is undulating and thickly covered 

 with trees, except where the wood has been thinned out for 

 the cocoa plantations. The harbour is of remarkable form, 

 cutting deep into the northern end of the island. I might 

 liken it to the wide estuary of a river. The remaining 

 third of the island — the ridge where my camp is now, 

 marking its northern boundary — is the mountainous portion 

 of the island. Here there are one or two peaks of remark- 

 able shape ; Papagaio itself is like the top of a pepper-castor. 

 Here and there round its side the bare volcanic stone can be 

 seen, too steep for tree-growth, but everywhere else,, it is 

 thickly clothed with trees. Then there is the Carriote, a 

 bare pillar of stone, and a small edition of the Dog-Peak on 

 San Thome. The island, however, is nothing like so 

 mountainous as San Thome, which is a mass of wooded hills 

 and mountains. 



Since we have been on the island there has been very 

 little rain, now and again a sharp fall at night or early in the 

 morning or towards evening, and generally coming from the 

 north. The thickly wooded nature of the mountain raised 

 my hopes of getting some interesting species^ but my wishes 



