252 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



bearers emitting sounds like groans, or Encouraging one another, 

 or hum-drumming each of these to a different tune. The most 

 soothing one is "Hoven Horen, Hooven Hayven," repeated 

 again and again. Another is like " No fool lazy, no fool lazy." 

 The encouraging cries are " Ho tambe," " Harra pungee." 



This being the end of the dry season, the smaller plants 

 burnt up, and the shrubs flagged with heat or wholly shrivelled, 

 the r "road offers few interesting details to the botanist. The 

 soil is a granite sand, rough to the foot and barren to the eye. 

 Daylight begins a little before six, and then the woods were 

 full of chirping and whistling birds, one crying " Pocock, 

 pocock," vociferously. Here and there regiments of ants were 

 crossing the road in dense continuous lines, and every few 

 yards we passed the great clay hillocks made by them. Other 

 species had huge leafy nests, like those of wasps, hung in the 

 trees, while another had theirs of leaves glued together at the 

 edges. I don't know how many species I noticed, but scarcely 

 a bush, tree, stone, or spot of earth was free from some kind or 

 another. One tree species is large, red, and very fierce. The 

 most remarkable tree I observed was the parasitic fig, which 

 drops its seeds on the trunk of another tree, and these send 

 down roots all round it and up it, till at last the whole tree is 

 clasped round by the parasite (or epiphyte), which then grows 

 to a huge size, and might pass for a small banyan. Coming to 

 a small river, I had a delicious bath, drinking the water and 

 washing myself at the same time. At noon the bearers chose 

 to proceed, though the sun was intensely hot. I wrapped my 

 head in a towel and my body in a Scotch plaid, and thus lying 

 in my cot, was borne along the hot road. Soon, however,- we 

 again entered the forest, and I could peep out and see what 

 was passing. This was the hour for butterflies, which were 

 flying through the glades by thousands, white, brown, blue, and 

 spotted. Wherever a part of the road was a little moist, it was 

 thickly covered with them, so thick, as almost to touch each 

 other for yards together ; and I noticed that where several 

 kinds were thus sucking the moisture, they kept in distinct 

 troops, not mixing together. 



The shrubs in flower were, chiefly, a few kinds of cassia, one 

 of which looked like a laburnum, acacia, and Ixora coecinea, 

 whose scarlet clusters of stars abounded along the whole way. 



