IN SUMATBA. 207 



scarlet Mschynanthes, and occasionally a gorgeous asclepiad. 

 The varied forms and colours of the foliage, however, greatly 

 relieved the general want of flowers. From the broad leaves 

 of the Ginger family and the tangled thickets of palms, to 

 the graceful fronds oi Ahopliila, C i/ atJiea a.nd creeping DavalUa, 

 to the pandans and aroids which embrace the tree trunks and 

 clothe the leafless coils of the lianes, there is a perpetual and 

 refreshing variety. Here I found a curious species of Ficus, 

 whose long stem-branches penetrated underground, where the 

 figs were produced with their orifices only above the surface. 



Nothing could be finer than many of the crowns of flowers 

 of the giant trees that I was constantly felling. One of these, 

 a species of Styrax (8. suhpaniculatuni), was a mass of blossom 

 which scented the region of the mountain for days after I felled 

 it, and often beguiled me aside to admire even its fading beauty. 



At' 4800 feet I gathered the first ericaceous plants, as 

 climbing shrubs on the tops of the highest trees ; and some 500 

 feet higher the ground was strewed with great blossoms four 

 to five inches in diameter, from the Gordonia exeelsa, a giant of 

 the Terndroemacex, or Tea family. At 6000 feet the region of 

 troublesome and irritating rattans and of Pychosperma palms 

 was passed, and I entered a forest of more slender trees, 

 with still many grand fern-loaded specimens among them, 

 especially belonging to the Myrtle family as their fallen 

 corollas indicated. At 7000 feel, near the half-way camp 

 I had erected, a patch of tall Pandan trees occurred on the 

 sides of a gorge, but nowhere else on the mountain. Here, 

 flitting over the fallen logs, I stalked a pretty little brown 

 hill-wren [Fnoepyga fusilla), which started on the slightest 

 motion into a hole or crevice, and when at last wounded it 

 took refuge in a burrow two yards long, whence it had to be 

 duo- out. This species was known before only from the 

 Himalayas and Tenasserini till it was discovered in this island 

 on the Padang mountains by l^r. Beccari ; but my Dempo 

 specimen was the first that had been seen in England. 

 Besides herds of elephants, an occasional Siamang, and 

 many tigers, mammalian life did show itself on the mountain. 

 The long grey-beard lichens now covering the trees were an 

 indication of the dampness of the atmosphere. Here a red- 

 stemmed Bogonia grew in the utmost luxuriance, intermingling 



