pomoloes, Durian, mangoes, tarippe, rambutan, jack fruit
and champada, rose apples (jambosa), cocoanuts, man-
gosteen, rambi, bananas in variety, limes, guava, papaw,
cashew nut, and several others, including the bread-fruit,
baloonas, mambangan. The total revenue in 1877 was
.£7,490, the expenditure being £7,995. Imports, total
value, £126,594, exports £112,996. Cattle and ponies
are cheap—thus, good cows are worth £2 to £4 each;
Shanghai sheep, £1 to £ 2 ; goats, 10s. each; ponies, £4
to £10. These last are imported from the Sulu Islands.
Water buffaloes are generally used as draught animals,
and are worth from £ 4 to £6 each.
The whole island is tolerably flat, and at one time
was entirely covered with forests, yielding fine timber.
Of late years, however, jungle fires have been frequent
during the dry season; and at the present time but little
old forest remains. The climate is now generally supposed
to be drier and more healthy than formerly; but
the flora has suffered much, many orchids and other rare
plants, formerly found here in abundance, being now
quite extinct. After the rains a lovely little blue bur-
mannia (B. ccelestis), and a tiny sundew become very pretty
on the plains. Yellow flowered xyrids and eriocaulons
grace the wet ditches, and the orange orchards are
redolent with perfume, the trees being then in bloom,
and at night the gardens are illuminated with fire-flies.
I resided for some time in a house which had been
occupied by Mr. Hugh Low, the garden and fruit orchard
of which afforded the most delightful walks morning and
evening. I never saw the elk’s-hom fern (Platycerium
grande) so luxuriant anywhere as it was on the boles of
some large orange-trees here. The barren fronds were
broad, like the horns of the giant Irish elk ; and the
more slender fertile ones drooped on all sides from the
base of the nest formed by the leafy expansions. I
measured some of these fertile fronds, and found them
fully seven feet in length. These splendid ferns (one of
e l k ’s- h o r n f e r n .
which is here represented in my sketch), and the choicest
of epiphytal orchids, which had been planted among the
branches of the trees, made a walk amongst them most
enjoyable. I thought at the time I should never like to