THE FLORA OF LOWER SUM. 23 



graph wires. The wires were never put up and the beams 

 are lying alongside the streams rotting. 



On the second day, the Governor sent me a man who 

 spoke Malay to accompany me anywhere I wished to go and 

 to assist me generally. Two days I went down the river to 

 the limestone hills, and on another day walked across to 

 Pongah and slept there, returning by another route the 

 following day. The distance I estimate to be about 10 or 12 

 miles. Pongah is not so nice a place as it was in the old 

 Eaja's time, things are fast going to decay. The road from 

 the landing which he planted up with shady trees and kept in 

 good order is now almost impassable in places, and the build- 

 ing in which I stayed on a previous visit, and was most 

 hospitably "entertained, leaks like a sieve, and as it rained, 

 the night I was there it was difficult to find a dry spot. It 

 is interesting to note that several natives have a few orchids 

 growing around their houses and one has quite an interesting 

 little collection, and this, they told me, was the result of my 

 previous visit. Dendrobium Farmerii is evidently the kind 

 they prize most, and shows good taste on their part, but it 

 is scarce, and they set a value on them that prevented me 

 from buying. This is abundant in Mergui, and Pongah is 

 apparently about its southern limit. One very interesting 

 dendrobium I saw in a garden which I was most anxious to 

 get, but the owner would not part ; he, however, gave some 

 flowers to dry which will, I hope, be sufficient for determin- 

 ation, but I have little doubt it is an undescribed species. 

 On the limestone islands I collected a great number of in- 

 teresting and some, I believe, perfectly new plants, among 

 the latter being a ginger, balsam, and arum. 



Many plants were observed that it was quite impossible 

 to get at, but, on the whole, I made a very satisfactory col- 

 lection. The ginger which I believe to be new and of which 

 I only saw a single flower, although it had been flowering 

 freely not long previously, grows in the chinks of the hardest 

 rocks where it is impossible to get at the roots without blast- 

 ing them out. I saw hundreds but only succeeded in getting 



R. A. Soc, No. 59, I9H. 



