7^ SUMATRA. 157 



of the Quadramana to be met with in this region, the Orang- 

 utan not being found so far in the south. 



Continuing my journey, skirting round an elbow of Mt. 

 Tengamus, I descended on the village of Terratas, looking 

 down on the Bay of Semangka with its mountainous shores, 

 and on the peaked summit of the island of Tabuang standing 

 out of the motionless water. In one of the little ravines I 

 gathered specimens of a singular climbing shrub (Lagenaria) 

 with immense semi-globular fruits over two feet seven inches 

 in circumference. Though in size so large they are quite 

 light, their seeds being small and winged with a broad, 

 glancing membrane, thinner than the finest white tissue paper, 

 which serves as a float to disseminate them. 



Two days later I made the ascent of the mountain, which, 

 owing to its fissured and chasmed character, was tedioiis 

 and difficult. Passing through a dense belt of wild bananas 

 and Zingiberiaceous plants, then a zone of disagreeable rattan- 

 palms, we broke into the deep, dark virgin forest, beneath 

 whose shade little or nothing was to be found growing, save 

 here and there an arum with a curious serpent^liead-like 

 spathe, or in bright scarlet fruit ; but at 3000 feet I was 

 gladdened by entering a belt of Ixora trees in one mass 

 of scarlet flowers, which, as the mountain rose abruptly; 

 had a fine effect viewed from above. In the damper regions 

 a little higher, the tree-trunks began to be more densely 

 clothed with orchids and ferns and climbers of all kinds; 

 and here and there, high in the angles of the branches, 

 scarlet Azaleas, which had crept down the mountain out of 

 the temperate heights as far as they might dare. At 5000 

 feet I gathered Horsfield's Dipteris fern, which seems too 

 delicate to thrive well at home though it is a denizen of the 

 higher mountains of the tropics, accompanied by great fields 

 of a handsome species of bracken {Gleiclienia glauca). At 

 5400 feet I halted for the night in a small hut that I had a 

 day or two previously had erected for our accommodation on 

 the verge of the more temperate region of the mountain, where 

 the trees became smaller and more stunted and were loaded 

 with lichens, mosses and feathery lycopods, and which turned 

 out to be the lowest limit of the pitcher-plants. 



Few signs of animal life were observed, except the spoor of 

 12 



