‘VARNISH TREES 51 
Having done this they left, and I had no more trouble 
of the sort, everything going on smoothly and all the 
collectors rejoining my service. The weather was, how- 
ever, now beginning to get cold, with heavy rain, showing 
plainly that the season for collecting was drawing to a 
close, and that I should soon have to return. I decided 
before going to make an excursion over the summit of 
the range and into the valley beyond. When I got to the 
ridge I saw that the country to the southward was much 
more open, there being no forest ; the surface also was 
more cultivated, and there were no more mountain 
ranges near, but it was much cut up by deep ravines 
and watercourses, which were rich in beautiful plants, 
flowers, and ferns. It is no exaggeration to say that 
it is quite possible to talk to a man across one of 
these ravines when it would perhaps take two days’ 
journey to reach him, so deep and precipitous are they 
and dangerous to traverse. The watercourses, which 
are very numerous, form tributaries of the Etu River, 
which enters the Yang-tze twenty miles below Ichang, 
and is navigable for sampans only for some distance 
from its mouth. Here is found the tree whose sap 
produces vegetable varnish (Rhus vernicifera?). It 
grows to about the size of an ordinary ash or walnut 
on. the sides of the slopes at considerable elevation. In 
the month of May longitudinal incisions are made in 
EQ 
