398 Observations made on a Botanical Excursion. [Oct. 



One of my garrys is broken hopelessly and advancing on the spokes 

 instead of the tyre of the wheels. By the banks of a deep gnlley here the 

 rocks are well exposed, of shales resting on the limestone, which is nearly 

 horizontal ; and this again, un conformably on the quartz and homstone 

 rocks, which are confused and tilted up at all angles. In one place I 

 observed the strata of the latter to run horizontally for a few feet, 

 and suddenly to be turned up at right angles ; with an arc less than a 

 foot in span. 



A spur of the Kymaon, like that of Rotas, here projects to the bed 

 of the river, naming at night with beacon-like fires of the natives, 

 lighted to scare the tigers and bears from the spot where they cut 

 wood and bamboo. The night was bright and clear, with much light- 

 ning, the latter attracted to the spur, and darting down as it were to 

 mingle its flame with that of the forest ; so many flashes appeared to 

 strike on the flames, that it is probably the rarified air in their neigh- 

 bourhood attracted it. 



February 25th. — Awakened between 3 and 4 by a violent dust 

 storm which threatened to carry away the tents. Our position at the 

 mouth of the gnlley, formed by the opposite hills, no doubt accounts 

 for it. The gusts were so furious that it was impossible to observe the 

 barometer, which I returned to its case on ascertaining that any indica- 

 tions of a rise or fall, in the column must have been quite trifling. 



The night had been oppressively hot, with many insects flying about ; 

 amongst which I noticed a For/icula, a genus so rarely known to take 

 to the wing in Britain. 



At 8-j a. m. it suddenly fell calm, and we proceeded to Chahnchee 

 (elev. 482 feet), the native carts breaking down in the passage over 

 the projecting beds of flinty rocks, or as they hurried down the inclin- 

 ed planes we cut through the precipitous banks of the streams. Near 

 Chahnchee passed an alligator, just killed by two men, a foul beast, 

 about 9 feet long, of the Mager kind. More absorbing than its natu- 

 ral history was the circumstance of its having swallowed a child, that 

 was playing in the water as its mother was washing her utensils in the 

 river. The brute was hardly dead, much distended by the prey, and 

 the mother standing beside it. A very touching group was this : the 

 parent with her hands clasped in agony, unable to withdraw her eyes 

 from the cursed reptile, which still clung to life with that tenacity for 



