68 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



had been enamelled on in an unbroken sheet. It was found 

 quite solitary or in company only with its mate, and never in 

 flocks. 



I was pleased to see the liveliness of the village children, 

 who amused themselves with games very similar to those of 

 children at our country schools at home — games of marbles 

 played with small stones, very like what is called Tceip in the 

 north of Scotland, with varieties of chevy, tig, and blind-man's 

 buff. 



Hearing that I had come to reside in the village, a country- 

 man, Mr. H. Lash of the Kosala estate, sent me a warm 

 invitation to make his house in the mountains my head- 

 quarters, which, as Tjipanas was a very unprofitable station, I 

 was only too glad to do. Kosala was only a forenoon's ride up 

 through winding valleys to an elevation of 1800 feet. 



My gratitude can never be warmly enough expressed to this 

 esteemed friend (now, I regret to say, no more) and his accom- 

 plished wife, for their great hospitality and kindness ; and for 

 the assistance which for many months was afforded me by my 

 host, both personally and through his servants and horses, in 

 making botanical collections in the large stretch of virgin 

 forest which he owned, specimens of whose great trees were 

 special desiderata with me. 



Orchids abounded in great variety in the unopened forest, 

 while the tree trunks that had been lying felled in the coffee 

 gardens for some time were overrun with the species more 

 delighting in sunshine. Eeing soon struck with the large 

 number whose flowers fell without setting any fruit, — a fact 

 that first struck me while botanising some years before in the 

 south of Europe, — I determined to institute a series of observa- 

 tions on these plants, a project in wliich Mr. Lash — himself 

 one of those who sedulously cultivate science in their leisure 

 hours — entered with the greatest interest, and never wearied 

 of personally searching for specimens, for whose rearing he 

 put a great part of his beautiful garden ungrudgingly at my 

 disposal. 



The estate house, planned by himself, was a large tiled 

 edifice of planks not subject to the attacks of insects, elevated 

 a few feet on piles standing on an asphalt floor, isolated by a 

 stream of water entirely encircling the building, so that it was 



