TO THE COURT OF AYA. 
77 
reached Kogun, distant by computation twenty- 
five miles from Martaban. The scenery in this 
neighbourhood was grand and beautiful, the banks 
of the river high, and the country to all appear¬ 
ance peculiarly fertile. Close to the left bank of 
the river was to be seen a range of mountains, 
steep, bare, and craggy, rising to the apparent 
height of fifteen hundred feet. Almost immedi¬ 
ately on the right bank, and where the river 
makes an acute angle, a number of detached co¬ 
nical hills rose almost perpendicularly from the 
plain. All these last are of a grey compact lime¬ 
stone. We visited the largest, which contains a 
spacious cave, dedicated to the worship of Gau¬ 
tama, and which, besides having its roof rudely 
but curiously carved, contains several hundred 
images of that deity, a good number of them of 
pure white marble from the quarries of Ava. 
Around the hill is a garden belonging to a neigh¬ 
bouring monastery, in no very good order. The 
only plant in it which struck us as remarkable, 
was a tree about twenty feet high, abounding in 
long and pendulous pannicles of rich geranium- 
coloured blossoms, and long and elegant lance¬ 
shaped leaves : it is of the class and order Dia - 
delpliia Decandria , and too beautiful an object to 
be passed unobserved, even by the uninitiated in 
botany. Handfuls of the flowers were found as 
offerings in the cave before the images of Gauta- 
