IN TilE EASTERN AltC/IfPELAGO. 



169 



pretty effect in each of these miaiatnre green-walled ponds, 

 v/hma siirfiice, save where the fountains played aad for the 

 sik^nt circles of each out flow- vortex, was niibroken by a single 

 ripple. As the terraces rose but little above each other, the 

 bine sky was reflected tia in a mirror along the whole valley, 

 while the bright green of the yoinig corn peeping np above the 

 surface, by giving a green colour to the mirror without In the 

 least breaking to the eye the placid surface of the water, or 

 interfering with perfect reflcctioti of the ever-changing face of 

 the sky, produced a beautiiul effect impossible to describe in 

 words. Here and there, adding life to the scene, in the midst 

 of these fields were smoking cottages embowered in groves of 

 Mriodendron and Acacia trees. 



Fording the river, the road took us, after a steep ascent, for 

 several miles along almost a knife-ridge nntler a grand old 

 avenue of virgin forest, at whose termination I half expected 

 to iind a stately eastle or an ancient ruin. As we approached 

 the village the forest b*3came less deiise, and we passed between 

 a line of ttdi red-leaved Hanjuan^s (Galodraem Jaequim'i), 

 a shrub sacred to their graveyards. Under this avenue of 

 mourning, jiL^st outride the village gate, wiis laid out that one 

 institution, at all events, common to the most exalted civilisa- 

 tion and the most debased barbarism— the Home of the dead. 

 Eaeh little mound, often surmounted by circular oniamented 

 pillars of wood diverging from each other at opjxisite ends of 

 the grave wifhin a fenced and neatly tended inclosure, was 

 planted with Crotons and bcitutiful-leaved shrubs. 



The village itself surprised me not a little. It might have 

 been a feudal castle. As its name, Hoodjoong or '\ the village 

 on the verge/* implies, it was situated at the extremity of 1- 

 the long narrow ridge along which I ha*! come, and was in- 

 accessible, owing to precipitous slopes dipping down into the • 

 deep valley on all sides except on the one we had approached 

 it by, and there the road, rising in a short steep bicline, passed 

 into the village uiidt^r a narrow gateway cut out of the soft 

 tufa which hid the village till it was passed. All that was 

 wanted to complete the picture was a battlemented tower or 

 two over it, and the chains of a drawbridge and portcullis. 

 The village looked down into a deep alluvial valley laid out 

 in rice-plots along the banks of a stream whose double sources 



