440 



A NATUBALJST'S WANDEHINOS 



natiTG of tlie district whom luckily we caught uuawares before 

 he could make off, we persuaded htm with the offer of a 

 gaudy kerchief to guide us to the Kajah of Turskain'a. In his 

 rear we slid and stumbled dowu on the slippery clay for 1000 

 feet to the Maukuda, a noisy sparkling stream in a narrow 

 ravine which finds its way to the south coast (showing that we 

 had crossed the water-shed of the country), up which we 

 clambered over boulders and through deep pools for nearly an 

 hour. The sides of the ravine, however, were densely covered 

 with vegetation, and bright with hedychium, balsams, and the 

 French marigold {Tagetes puiula) ao common in our gardens 

 at home, but which was here growing wild far from coast 

 influence or the highways of the worhl, and was seen by me 

 nowhere else along my route. It is a widespread plant, 

 hailing from Mexico originally, but also found in Africa; but 

 how did it reach the interior of Timor ? 



Turaiug to the right out of the stream our horses bad to be 

 urged up one of the steepest inclines we had yet encountered, 

 in trenches as deep as their own height, and along more pre- 

 cipitous and (langerons ravines than those we bad jiassed. In 

 compensation for these difficulties the scenery was charmingly 

 picturesque, in the glimpses we got of it through the rolling 

 mist-clouds, and above all, we had entered a more fertile 

 grass-clad region though without much arboreal vegetation 

 beyond acacias and casuarinas. Every foot of the way was 

 dotted with bright herbs in full flower, with violets, white- 

 flowered geraniums like our Herb-Eobert in habit, Galium 

 very like our common Bedstniw, pink Lahialx resembling the 

 Penny-royal of our English roadsides, Oxalis, and Poltftjanum^ 

 while among the grass and in rocky nooks grew small terres- 

 trial orchids and the most lovely silver and other graceful 

 fenis ; and where the soil ^vm broken by land-slips, and in the 

 ravines, flowering shrubs abounded, so that I mourned that I 

 had not arms big enough to embnu^e specimens of all I might 

 have gathered. Though we had been climbing up and clam- 

 bering down — first down 500 feet then up 1700, down 1000 

 only to rise again the same number of feet— since early 

 morning till ptist five o*cloek in tlie evening, I quite forgot the 

 steepness of this last ascent (leading up to oui destination the 

 residence of the Eajah of Tnrskain), and my weariness of limb 



