lii ITINERARY. 



up besides food — enough for about a week for a small party on the top, 

 the bulk to be stored in a camp at the foot of the wall, to which 

 additions could be made as required by a relay of two or three men, 

 every two or three days, to replace others on the top. 



An account of the ascent has already been given in McConnell's 

 narrative of the first journey in the first volume, and it will only be 

 necessary here to add extensions where fresh information has been 

 obtaicted. The plant with fiowers like balls of crimson silk {Pithecolo- 

 hium ferrugineum), which is one of the endemic species, was in brillia.nt 

 bloom, and it was as an omen of better things to come. Remembering 

 the fire which had been carelessly set to the dry bracken on the former 

 trip, and which had worked havoc amid the vegetation all over the 

 slopes, even endangering our lives when it had blazed fiercely around 

 us in the tall dry stuff, we had requested everyone to be careful on 

 this point, though it was usually desirable to burn off dry grass where 

 possible for the destruction of poisonous snakes. There was therefore 

 no need to pause now below on the track for things we might get at 

 leisure later on ; still we were obliged to stop awhile at the famous El 

 Dorado swamp, where there were in fine flower the benutiful pitcher- 

 plants and Utricularias, gentians, liliaceous plants, Burmannias and 

 orchids, of very many tints of red and yellow and blue and brown, 

 many very fragrant, and especially Eriopsis schomhurgkii with its long 

 spikes of brownish-purple flowers, with several others, amid which the 

 bright golden-yellovi' leaves of Brocchinia reducta gave the general tint 

 when seen from a distance. Various small bushes, creepers, shrubs, and 

 trees, scattered around, were also in flower, with varying shades of red, 

 yellow, blue and white, mainly reddish-yellow and reddish-blue Mela- 

 stomas, a golden Cassia, a brilliant yellow Mandevilla, and a rich red 

 Retiniphyllum, most of them new species. The slope looked brighter, 

 and was even more fragrant than we had remembered it. 



Perhaps one might mention here from the Repott on our two 

 Botanical collections, already referred to, that while among the general 

 Guiana flowering plants the largest number belong to the Leguminous 

 order, then next to the Orchids, the Melastomes coming a poor seventh, 

 the order of precedence changes among the flora of this upper slope 

 to the summit, the OrcTiids coming first, then the Melastomes — the 

 Legumes being, as it were, nearly out of it. 



Entering the forest-belt we found the old track distinguishable at 

 first, but soon it began to get so overgrown that as we advanced it 

 became almost impossible to say where it lay ; and it was a matter of 

 trying this part or that to see which was the more likely. Our pro- 

 gress therefore was slow, and it became certain, considering the rough 

 insecure, and treacherous foothold, that we could not reach the wall 

 till the next day. We pushed on carefully as far as possible, and then 

 late in the afternoon returned to the edge of the forest-belt to make as 

 comfortable sleeping-quarters as we could. We hoped to be able to 

 pierce to the wall next day, make a camp, and perhaps ascend to the 

 top — the ascent being very doubtful, as from the excessive moisture of 

 the upper part, the track was likely to be much more obscured by 

 overgrowths. 



In the morning early we started off, and soon found ourselves in 



