BY W. KING, ESQ. 



93 



The water shows nearly up to the top of the ravine, where 

 it appears to rise from some out-cropping beds of slate inter- 

 calated with quartzites. The ravine is well wooded, but 

 only close along side of the bed of the stream, whence rise 

 up some splendid mangoe trees. Near the top there is 

 a sufficient elevation to allow of the Bauhinia creeper 

 growing most luxuriantly, spreading mischief all round with 

 its parasitic stems. 



Remembering what we had seen of the ravages of this 

 creeper about Mantyconda, we brought an axeman to try 

 and stop its growth in a small way, and here the wood- 

 man set to work with a will. The dark-coloured gnarled stem 

 gives one the idea of a hard wood, while, on the contrary, it 

 is quite soft and spongy, the cut surface looking extremely 

 like raw beef ; consequently, the ordinary narrow and thick 

 headed woodman's axe of the country is not suitable for 

 cutting the creeper down. Just where the stream com- 

 mences to ooze out of the rocks, the Bauhinia had al- 

 most overpowered every thing but a few gigantic mangoe trees, 

 though with these it was getting on pretty well ; and in 

 such a labyrinth of ropes and festoons of stems, we could do 

 little else, but free the mangoes from one or two of their 

 greatest enemies, when it was quite a pleasure to see the 

 great pendulous trunks swing away free and death -smitten, 

 as they were severed from the parent root. 



We then got over the Nimuljeery ridge on to an elevated 

 plateau of open jungle with long crops of hay, after crossing 

 which, and some minor wooded valleys and ridges,, the path 

 began to descend the eastern side of the mountains by a dry 

 ravine of slaty rocks, and so passed on into a broad valley. 

 Here also the jungle is open and thin, with a crop of long and 

 fine hay, but there are at intervals belts of thicker jungle 

 of trees among which are many Yippas, the courses of the 

 stream, being, likewise, clothed with thick jungle, 



